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BOHFS STANDAED LIBEAET. 



SCHLEGEL'S DRAMATIC IITERATURE. 



" Were I to pray for a taste wMch should stand me in stead under 
every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerful- 
ness to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might 

go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading 

Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly 
fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a 
most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best 
society in every period of history, — with the wisest, the wittiest, the ten- 
derest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. 
You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The 
world has been created for him." — Sir John Herschel. Address on 
the opening of the Eton Library, 1833. 




^-''//./ Sirnnz/7n^s 



AW©wi^wg WEiLJLiriu^i \r(S)W ^cmilik^iiii,, 



COURSE OF LECTURES 



DRAMATIC AET AO IITERATURE, 



BY 



AUGUSTUS WILLIAM SCHLEGEL. 

W 



TRANSLATED 



By JOHN BLACK, Esa. 

LATB EDITOR OP THE MORNING CHRONICLE. 



REVISED, ACCORDING TO THE LAST GERMAN EDITION, 

By The REV? A. J. W. MORRISON, M.A. 



LONDOJST: 

HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 

1846. 



Gf 



'A 



p^r.|. 






HARRISON AND CO., I'RIxNTERS, 
ar. MARn.x's hANK. 

G!ft 
Wrs. Hennen Jennings 
April 26, 1933 



COFTEI^TS. 



PAGE 

Preface of the Translator 1 

Author's Preface 4 

Memoir of the Life of Augustus William Schlegel 7 

LECTURE I. 

Introduction — Spirit of True Criticism — Difference of Taste between 
the Ancients and Moderns — Classical and Romantic Poetry and 
Art — Division of Dramatic Literature ; the Ancients, their Imita- 
tors, and the Romantic Poets... 17 

LECTURE II. 

Definition of the Drama — View of the Theatres of all Nations — The- 
atrical Effect — Importance of the Stage — Principal Species of the 
Drama ; 30 

LECTURE III. 

Essence of Tragedy and Comedy — Earnestness and Sport — How far 
it is possible to become acquainted with the Ancients without 
knowing Original Lemguages — Winkelmann 43 

LECTURE IV. 

Structure of the Stage among the Greeks — Their Acting — Use of 
Masks — False comparison of Ancient Tragedy to the Opera — Tra- 
gical Lyric Poetry 52 

LECTURE V. 

Essence of the Greek Tragedies — Ideality of the Representation — 
Idea of Fate — Source of the Pleasure derived from Tragical Repre- 
sentations — Import of the Chorus — The materials of Greek Tragedy 
derived from Mythology — Comparison with the Plastic Arts 66 

LECTURE VI. 

Progress of the Tragic Art among the Greeks — Various styles of Tragic 
Art — ^schylus — Connexion in a Trilogy of .^schylus — His re- 
maining Works 78 

LECTURE VII. 
Life and Political Character of Sophocles — Character of his different 
Tragedies 96 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

LECTURE VIII. 

Euripides — His Merits and Defects — Decline of Tragic Poetry 
througli him Ill 

LECTURE IX. 

Comparison between the Choephora of -^schylus, the Electra of 
Sophocles, and that of Euripides 122 

LECTURE X. 

Character of the remaining Works of Euripides — The Satirical 
Drama — Alexandrian Tragic Poets 134 

LECTURE XI. 

The Old Comedy proved to be completely a contrast to Tragedy — 
Parody — Ideality of Comedy the reverse of that of Tragedy — 
^Mirthful Caprice — Allegoric and Political Signification — The 
Chorus and its Parabases 145 

LECTURE XII. 

Aristophanes — His Character as an Artist — Description and Character 
of his remaining Works — A Scene, translated from the Acharnae, 
by way of Appendix < 153 

LECTURE XIII. 

WTiether the Middle Comedy was a distinct species — Origin of the 
New Comedy — A mixed species — Its prosaic character — Whe- 
ther versification is essential to Comedy — Subordinate kinds — 
Pieces of Character, and of Intrigue — The Comic of observation, 
of self-consciousness, and arbiti-ary Comic — Morahty of Comedy 174 

LECTURE XIV. 

Plautus and Terence as Imitators of the Greeks, here examined and 
characterized in the absence of the Originals they copied — Motives 
of the Athenian Comedy from Manners and Society — Portrait- Sta- 
tues of two Comedians 188 

LECTURE XV. 

Roman Theatre — Native kinds : Ateilane Fables, Mimes, Comoedia 
Togata — Greek Tragedy transplanted to Rome — Tragic Authors of a 
former Epoch, and of the Augustan Age — Idea of a National Roman 
Tragedy — Causes of the want of success of the Romans in Tragedy 
— Seneca 200 

LECTURE XVI. 

The Italians — Pastoral Dramas of Tasso and Guarini — Small progress 
in Tragedy — Metastasio and Alfieri — Character of both — Comedies 
of Ariosto, Aretin, Porta — Improvisatore Masks — Goldoni — Gozzi 
— Latest state 213 



I 



CONTENTS. VI 1 

PAGE 

LECTURE XVII. 

Antiquities of the French Stage — Influence of Aristotle and the Imi- 
tation of the Ancients — Investigation of the Tliree Unities — ^What 
is Unity of Action ? — Unity of Time — Was it observed by the 
Greeks ? — Unity of Place as connected with it 232 

LECTURE XVIII. 

Mischief resulting to the French Stage from too narrow Interpreta- 
tion of the Rules of Unity — Influence of these rules on French 
Tragedy — Manner of treating Mythological and Historical Materials 
—Idea of Tragical Dignity — Observation of Conventional Rules — 
False System of Expositions 253 

LECTURE XIX. 

Use at first made of the Spanish Theatre by the French — General 
Character of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire — Review of the prin- 
cipal Works of Corneille and of Racine — ^Thomas Corneille and 
Crebillon 275 

LECTURE XX. 

Voltaire — Tragedies on Greek Subjects: (Edipe, Merope, Oreste — 
Tragedies on Roman Subjects : Bruie, Morte de Cesar, Catiline, 
Le Triumvirat — Earlier Pieces: Zaire, Alzire, Mahomet, Semi- 
ramis, and Tancred 295 

[LECTURE XXI. 

French Comedy — Moliere — Criticism of his Works — Scarron, Bour- 
sault, Regnard ; Comedies in the Time of the Regency ; Marivaux 
and Destouches ; Piron and Gresset — Later Attempts — The Heroic 
Opera : Quinault — Operettes and Vaudevilles — Diderot's attempted 
Change of the Theatre — The Weeping Drama — Beaumarchais — > 
Melo-Dramas — Merits and Defects of the Histrionic Art 304 

LECTURE XXII. 

Comparison of the English and Spanish Theatres — Spirit of the Ro- 
mantic Drama — Shakspeare — His Age and the Circumstances of his 
Life 338 

LECTURE XXIII. 

Ignorance or Learning of Shakspeare — Costume as observed by Shak- 
speare, and how far necessary, or may be dispensed with, in the 
Drama — Shakspeare the greatest drawer of Character — Vindication 
of the genuineness of his pathos — Play on Words — Moral Delicacy 
— Irony — Mixture of the Tragic and Comic — The part of the Fool 
or Clown — Shakspeare's Language and Versification 354 

LECTURE XXIV. 

Criticisms on Shakspeare's Comedies 379 

LECTURE XXV. 
i Criticisms on Shakspeare's Tragedies 4C0 



Till CONTENTS. 

PAGfi 

LECTURE XXVI. 
Criticisms on Shakspeare's Historical Dramas , 414 

LECTURE XXVII. 

Two Periods of the English Theatre : the first the most important — 
The first Conformation of the Stage, and its Advantages — State of 
the Histrionic Art in Shakspeare's Time — Antiquities of Dramatic 
Literature — Lilly, Marlow, Heywood — Ben Jonson ; Criticism of 
his Works — Masques — Beaumont and Fletcher — General Charac- 
terization of these Poets, and Remarks on some of their Pieces — 
Massinger and other Contemporaries of Charles 1 446 

LECTURE XXVIII. 

Closing of the Stage by the Puritans — Revival of the Stage under 
Charles II. — Depravity of Taste and Morals — Dryden, Otway, and 
others — Characterization of the Comic Poets from Wycherley and 
Congreve to the Middle of the Eighteenth Centui-y — Tragedies of 
• the same Period — Rowe — Addison's Cato — Later Pieces — FamiUar 
Tragedy: Lillo — Garrick — Latest State 475 

LECTURE XXIX. 

Spanish Theatre — Its three Periods : Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Cal- 
deron — Spirit of the Spanish Poetry in general — Influence of the 
National History on it — Form, and various Species of the Spanish 
Drama — Decliue since the beginning of the Eighteenth Century .... 488 

LECTURE XXX. 

Origin of the German Theatre — Hans Sachs — Gryphius — ^The Age of 
Gottsched — ^Wretched Imitation of the French — Lessing, Goethe, 
and Schiller — Review of their Works — Their Influence on Chival- 
rous Dramas, Affecting Dramas, and Family Pictures — Prospect 
for Futurity , 506 



PEEFACE OF THE TKANSLATOE. 



The Lectures of A. W. Schlegel on Dramatic Poetry have 
obtained high celebrity on the Continent, and been much 
alluded to of late in several publications in this country. The 
boldness of his attacks on rules which are considered as sacred 
by the French critics, and on works of which the French 
nation in general have long been proud, called forth a more 
than ordinary degree of indignation against his work in 
France. It was amusing enough to observe the hostility car- 
ried on against him in the Parisian Journals. The writers in 
these Journals found it much easier to condemn M. Schlegel 
than to refute him: they allowed that what he said was very 
ingenious, and had a great appearance of truth; but still they 
said it was not truth. They never, however, as far as I could 
observe, thought proper to grapple with him, to point out 
anything unfounded in his premises, or illogical in the con- 
clusions which he drew from them; they generally confined 
themselves to mere assertions, or to minute and unimportant 
observations by which the real question was in no manner 
affected.] 

In this country the work will no doubt meet with a very 
diff'erent reception. Here we have no want of scholars to 
appreciate the value of his views of the ancient drama; and it 
will be no disadvantage to him, in our eyes, that he has been 
unsparing in his attack on the literature of our enemies. It 
will hardly fail to astonish us, however, to find a stranger 
better acquainted with the brightest poetical ornament of this 
country than any of ourselves; and that the admiration of 
the English nation for Shakspeare should first obtain a truly 
enlightened interpreter in a critic of Germany. 
72. A 



2 TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

It is not for me, however, to enlarge on the merits of a 
work which has already obtained so high a reputation. I 
shall better consult my own advantage in giving a short ex- 
tract from the animated account of M. Schlegel's Lectures 
in the late work on Germany by JMadame de Stael: — 

'•W. ScHLEGEL has given a course of Dramatic Literature 
at Vienna, which comprises every thing remarkable that has 
been composed for the theatre, from the time of the Grecians 
to our own days. It is not a barren nomenclature of the 
works of the various authors: he seizes the spirit of their 
different sorts of literature with all the imagination of a poet. 
Wo are sensible that to produce such consequences extra- 
ordinary studies are required: but learning is not perceived in 
this work, except by his perfect knowledge of the chefs-cVoeuvre 
of composition. In a few pages we reap the fruit of the 
labour of a whole life; every opinion formed by the author, 
every epithet given to the writers of whom he speaks, is 
beautiful and just, concise and animated. He has found the 
art of treating the finest pieces of poetry as so many wonders 
of nature, and of j)ainting them in lively colours, which do 
not injure the justness of the outline; for we cannot repeat 
too often, that imagination, far from being an enemy to 
truth, brings it forward more than any other faculty of the 
mind; and all those who depend upon it as an excuse for 
indefinite terms or exaggerated expressions, are at least as 
destitute of poetry as of good sense. 

" An analysis of the principles on which both Tragedy and 
Comedy are founded, is treated in this course with much depth 
of philosophy. This kind of merit is often found among the 
German writers; but Schlegel has no equal in the art of 
inspiring his own admiration; in general, he shows himself 
attached to a simple taste, sometimes bordering on rusticity; 
but he deviates from his usual opinions in favour of the inha- 
bitants of the South. Their play on words is not the object of 
his censure; he detests the affectation which owes its existence 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 3 

to tlie spirit of society: but tbat which is excited by the 
luxury of imagination pleases him, in poetry, as the profusion 
of colours and perfumes would do in nature. Schlegel, after 
having acquired a great reputation by his translation of 
Shakspeare, became also enamoured of Calderon, but with a 
very different sort of attachment from that with which Shak- 
speare had inspired him; for while the English author is deep 
and gloomy in his -knowledge of the human heart, the Spanish 
poet gives himself up with pleasure and delight to the beauty 
of life, to the sincerity of faith, and to all the brilliancy of 
those virtues which derive their colouring from the sunshine 
of the soul. 

"I was at Vienna when W. Schlegel gave his public 
course of Lectures I expected only good sense and instruc- 
tion, where the object was merely to convey information: I 
was astonished to hear a critic as eloquent as an orator, and 
who, far from falling upon defects, which are the eternal 
food of mean and little jealousy, sought only the means of 
reviving a creative genius." 

Thus far Madame de Stael. In taking upon me to become the 
interpreter of a work of this description to my countrymen, I 
am aware that I have incurred no slight degree of responsi- 
bility. How I have executed my task it is not for me to 
speak, but for the reader to judge. This much, however, I 
will say, — that I have always endeavoured to discover the 
true meaning of the author, and that I believe I have seldom 
mistaken it. Those who are best acquainted with the 
psychological riches of the German language, will be the most 
disposed to look on my labour with an eye of indulgence. 



A 2 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



From the size of tlie present work, it will not be expected 
that it should contain either a course of Dramatic Literature 
bibliographically complete, or a history of the theatre com- 
piled with antiquarian accuracy. Of books containing dry 
accounts and lists of names there are already enough. My 
purpose was to give a general view, and to develope those 
ideas which ought to guide us in our estimate of the value of 
the dramatic productions of various ages and nations. 

The greatest part of the following Lectures, with the ex- 
ception of a few observations of a secondary nature, the sug- 
gestion of the moment, were delivered orally as they now 
appear in print. The only alteration consists in a more com- 
modious distribution, and here and there in additions, where 
the limits of the time prevented me from handling many 
matters with uniform minuteness. This may afford a compen- 
sation for the animation of oral delivery which sometimes 
throws a veil over deficiencies of expression, and always 
excites a certain degree of expectation. 

I delivered these Lectures, in the spring of 1808, at Vienna, 
to a brilliant audience of nearly three hundred individuals of 
both sexes. The inhabitants of Vienna have long been iu 
the habit of refuting the injurious descriptions which many 
writers of the North of Germany have given of that capital, 
by the kindest reception of all learned men and artists 
belonging to these regions, and by the most disinterested zeal 
for the credit of our national literature, a zeal which a just 
sensibility has not been able to cool. I found here the cor- 
diality of better times united with that amiable animation of 



AUTHORS PREFACE. 5 

the South, which is often denied to our German seriousness, 
and the universal diffusion of a keen taste for intellectual 
amusement. To this circumstance alone I must attribute it 
that not a few of the men who hold the most important 
places at court, in the state, and in the army, artists and 
literary men of merit, women of the choicest social cultivation, 
paid me not merely an occasional visit, but devoted to me an 
uninterrupted attention. 

With joy I seize this fresh opportunity of laying my grati- 
tude at the feet of the benignant monarch who, in the permis- 
sion to deliver these Lectures communicated to me by way 
of distinction immediately from his own hand, gave me an 
honourable testimony of his gracious conjfidence, which I as a 
foreigner who had not the happiness to be born under his 
sceptre, and merely felt myself bound as a German and a 
citizen of the world to wish him every blessing and prosperity, 
could not possibly have merited. 

Many enlightened patrons and zealous promoters of every- 
thing good and becoming have merited my gratitude for the 
assistance which they gave to my undertaking, and the en- 
couragement which they afforded me during its execution. 

The whole of my auditors rendered my labour extremely 
agreeable by their indulgence, their attentive participation, 
and their readiness to distinguish, in a feeling manner, every 
passage which seemed worthy of their applause. 

It was a flattering moment, which I shall never forget, 
when, in the last hour, after I had called up recollections of 
the old German renown sacred to every one possessed of true 
patriotic sentiment, and when the minds of my auditors were 
thus more solemnly attuned, I was at last obliged to take my 
leave powerfully agitated by the reflection that our recent 
relation, founded on a common love for a nobler mental cul- 
tivation, would be so soon dissolved, and that I should never 
again see those together who were then assembled around 
me. A general emotion was perceptible, excited by so much 



6 AUTHOR S PREFACE 

that I could not say, but respecting which our hearts under- 
stood each other. In the mental dominion of thought and 
poetry, inaccessible to worldly power, the Germans, who are 
separated in so many ways from each other, still feel their 
unity : and in this feeling, whose interpreter the writer and 
orator must be, amidst our clouded prospects we may still 
cherish the elevating presage of the great and immortal call- 
ing of our people, who from time immemorial have remained 
unmixed in their present habitations. 

Geneva, February, 1809. 



Observation prefixed to Part of the Work 
printed in 181]. 

The declaration in the Preface that these Lectures were, 
with some additions, printed as they Avere delivered, is in so 
far to be corrected, that the additions in the second part are 
much more considerable than in the first. The restriction, in 
point of time in the oral delivery, compelled me to leave more 
gaps in the last half than in the first. The part respecting 
Shakspeare and the English theatre, in particular, has been 
almost altogether re-written. I have been prevented, partly 
by the want of leisure and partly by the limits of the work, 
from treating of the Spanish theatre with that fulness which 
its importance deserves. 



MEMOIR 



THE LITEEAKY LIFE 



AUGUSTUS WILLIAM VON SCHLEGEL 



Augustus William Von Schlegel, the author of tlie follow- 
ing LectureS; was, with his no-less distinguished brother, 
Frederick, the son of John Adolph Schlegel, a native of 
Saxony, and descended from a noble family. Holding a 
high appointment in the Lutheran church, Adolph Schlegel 
distinguished himself as a religious poet, and was the 
friend and associate of Eabener, Gellert, and Klopstock. 
Celebrated for his eloquence in the pulpit, and strictly dili- 
gent in the performance of his religious duties, he died in 
1792, leaving an example to his children which no doubt had 
. a happy influence on them. 

Of these, the seventh, Augustus William, was born in Ha- 
nover, September 5th, 1767. In his early childhood, he 
evinced a genuine susceptibility for all that was good and 
noble; and this early promise of a generous and virtuous 
disposition was carefully nurtured by the religious instruction 
of his mother, an amiable and highly-gifted woman. Of this 
parent's pious and judicious teaching, Augustus William had 
to the end of his days a grateful remembrance, and he che- 
rished for her throughout life a sincere and affectionate esteem, 
whose ardour neither time nor distance could diminish. The 



8 THE LITERARY LIFE OP 

filial affection of lier favourite son soothed tlie declining years 
of liis motlier, and lightened the anxieties with which the 
critical and troubled state of the times alarmed her old age. 
His further education was carried on by a private tutor, who 
prepared him for the grammar-school at Hanover, where he 
was distinguished both for his unremitting application, to 
wliich he often sacrificed the hours of leisure and recreation, 
and for the early display of a natural gift for language, which 
enabled him immediately on the close of his academic career 
to accept a tutorial appointment, which demanded of its 
holder a knowledge not only of the classics but also of English 
and French. He also displayed at a very early age a talent 
for poetry, and some of his juvenile extempore effusions were 
remarkable for their easy versification and rh3'-thmical flow. 
In his eighteenth year he was called upon to deliver in the 
Lyceum of his native city, the anniversary oration in honour 
of a royal birthday. His address on this occasion excited an 
extraordinary sensation both by the graceful elegance of the 
style and the interest of the matter, written in hexameters. 
It embraced a short history of poetry in Germany, and was 
relieved and animated with many judicious and striking 
illustrations from the earliest Teutonic poets. 

He now proceeded to the University of Gottingen as a 
student of theology, which science, however, he shortly aban- 
doned for the more congenial one of philology. The pro- 
priety of this charge he amply attested by his Essay on the 
Geography of Homer, which displayed both an intelligent 
and comprehensive study of this difficult branch of classical 
archaeology. 

At Gottingen he lived in the closest intimacy with Heyne, 
for whose Virgil, in 1788 he completed an index; he also 
became acquainted with the celebrated Michaelis. It was 
here too that he formed the friendship of Burger, to whose 
A cademie der Schonen Redekilnste, he contributed his A riadne, 



AUGUSTUS WILLIAM VON SCHLEGEL. 9 

and an essay on Dante. The kindred genius of Burger fa- 
vourably influenced liis own mind and tastes, and moved him 
to make the first known attempt to naturalize the Italian 
sonnet in Germany. 

Towards the end of his university career he combined his 
own studies with the private instruction of a rich young 
Englishman, born in the East Indies, and at the close of it 
accepted the post of tutor to the only son of Herr Muilmann, 
the celebrated Banker of Amsterdam. In this situation he 
gained universal respect and esteem, but after three years he 
quitted it to enter upon a wider sphere of literary activity. 
On his return to his native country he was elected Professor 
in the University of Jena. Schlegel's residence in this place, 
which may truly be called the classic soil of German litera- 
ture, as it gained him the acquaintance of his eminent con- 
temporaries Schiller and Goethe, marks a decisive epoch in the 
formation of his intellectual character. At this date he con- 
tributed largely to the Horen, and also to Schiller's Musen- 
Almanach, and down to 1799 was one of the most fertile 
writers in the Allgemeinen Liter atur-Zeitung of Jena. It 
was here, also, that he commenced his translations of Shak- 
speare, (9 vols., Berlin, 1797-1810,) which produced a salutary 
effect on the taste and judgment of his countrymen, and also 
on Dramatic Art and theatrical representation in Germany. 
Notwithstanding the favourable reception of this work he 
subsequently abandoned it, and on the publication of a new 
edition, in 1825, he cheerfully consigned to Tieck the revision 
of his own labours, and the completion of the yet untrans- 
lated pieces. 

Continuing attached to the University of Jena, where the 
dignity of Professorship was associated with that of Member 
of the Council, he now commenced a course of lectures 
on Esthetics, and joined his brother Frederick in the 
editorship of the Athenmum, (3 vols., Berlin, 1796-1800,) an 



10 THE LITERARY LIFE OP 

jEstlietico-critical journal; intended, while observing a rigor- 
ous but an impartial spirit of criticism, to discover and foster 
every grain of a truly vital development of mind. It wae 
also during his residence at Jena that he published the first 
edition of his Poems, among which the religious pieces and 
the Sonnets on Art were greatly admired and had many imita- 
tors. To the latter years of his residence at Jena, which may 
be called the political portion of Schlegel's literary career, 
belongs the Gate of Honour for the Stage-President Von- 
Kotzebice, {Ehrenpforte fur den Theater Prasidenten von 
Kotzebue, 1800,) an ill-natured and much-censured satire in 
reply to Kotzebue's attack, entitled the Hyperborean Ass 
(Hyperhoreischen Esee). At this time he also collected seve- 
ral of his own and brother Frederick's earlier and occa- 
sional contributions to various periodicals, and these, together 
with the hitherto unpublished dissertations on Blirger's works, 
make up the Characteristiken u Kritikea (2 vols., Kcenigsberg, 
1801). Shortly afterwards he undertook with Tieck the 
editorship oi Musen-Almanach for 1802. The two brothers 
were now leading a truly scientific and poetic life, associating 
and co-operating with many minds of a kindred spirit, who 
gathered round Tieck and Novalis as their centre. 

His marriage with the daughter of Michaelis was not a 
happy one, and was quickly followed by a separation, upon 
which Schlegel proceeded to Berlin. In this city, towards 
the end of 1802, he delivered his Lectures on the Present 
State of Literature and the Fine Arts, which were afterwards 
printed in the Buropa, under his brother's editorship. The 
publication in 1803 of his Ion, a drama in imitation of the 
ancients, but as a composition unmarked by any peculiar 
display of vigour, led to an interesting argument between him- 
self, Bernhardi, and Schilling. This discussion, which ex- 
tended from its original subject to Euripides and Dramatic 
Kepresentation iu general, was carried on in the Journal for 



AUGUSTUS WILLIAM VON SCHLEGEL. 11 

the Polite World (Zeitung fur die elegante Welt,) which 
Schlegel supported by his advice and contributions. In this 
periodical he also entered the lists in opposition to Kotzebae 
and Merkel in the Freimuthige {The Liberal), and the merits 
of the so-called modern school and its leaders, was the sub- 
ject of a paper war, waged with the bitterest acrimony of 
controversy, which did not scruple to employ the sharpest 
weapons of personal abuse and ridicule. 

At this date .Schlegel was engaged upon his Spanish Thea- 
tre, (2 vols., Berlin, 1803-1809). In the execution of this work, 
much was naturally demanded of the translator of Shak- 
speare, nor did he disappoint the general expectator, although 
he had here far greater difficulties to contend with. Not'con- 
tent with merely giving a faithful interpretation of his author's 
meaning, he laid down and strictly observed the law of adher- 
ing rigorously to all the measures, rhythms, and assonances of 
the original. These two excellen t translations, in each of which 
he has brought to bear both the great command of his own, 
and a wonderful quickness in catching the spirit of a foreign, 
language, have earned for Schlegel the foremost place among 
successful and able translators, while his Flowers of Italian, 
Spanish, and Portuguese Poetry {Blumenstrdusse d. Ital. Span. 
u. Portug. Poesie, Berlin, 1804), furnish another proof both 
of his skill in this pursuit and of the extent of his acquaint- 
ance with European literature. Moreover, the merit of having 
by these translations made Shakspeare and Calderon more 
widely known and better appreciated in Germany would, in 
default of any other claim, alone entitle him to take high 
rank in the annals of modern literature. 

But a new and more important career was now open to 
him by his introduction to Madame de Stael. Makins: a tour 
in Germany, this distinguished woman arrived at Berlin in 
1805, and desirous of acquainting herself more thoroughly 
Tvith German literature she selected Schlegel to direct her 



12 THE LITERARY LIFE OF 

studies of it, and at tlie same time confided to liis cliarge the 
completion of her children's education. Quitting Berlin he 
accompanied this lady on her travels through Italy and 
France, and afterwards repaired with her to her paternal seat 
at Coppet, on the Lake of Greneva, which now became for 
some time his fixed abode. It was here that in 1807 he 
wrote in French his Parallel hetween the Phaedra of Euri- 
pides and the Phedre of Racine, which produced a lively 
sensation in the literary circles of Paris. This city had pecu- 
liar attractions for Schlegel, both in its invaluable literary 
stores and its re-union of men of letters^ among whom his own 
views and opinions found many enthusiastic admirers and par- 
tisanS; notwithstanding that in his critical analysis of Racine's 
Phedre he had presumed to attack what Frenchmen deemed 
the chiefest glory of their literature, and had mortified their 
national vanity in its most sensitive point. 

In the spring of 1808 he visited Vienna, and there read to 
a brilliant audience his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Litera- 
ture, which, on their publication, were hailed throughout 
Europe with marked approbation, and w^hich will, unques- 
tionably, transmit his name to the latest posterity. His 
object in these Lectures is both to take a rapid survey of 
dramatic productions of difi'erent ages and nations, and to 
develope and determine the general ideas by which their true 
artistic value must be judged. In his travels with Madame de 
Stael he was introduced to the present King, then the Crown 
Prince, of Bavaria, who bestowed on him many marks of his 
respect and esteem, and about this time he took a part in the 
German Museum (Deutsche Museum), of his brother Fre- 
derick, contributing some learned and profound dissertations 
on the Lo.y of the Nihelungen. In 1812, when the subjugated 
South no longer afi'orded an asylum to the liberal-minded 
De Stael, with whose personal fortunes he felt himself insepa- 
rably linked by that deep feeling of esteem and friendship 



AUGUSTUS WILLIAM VON SCHLEGEL. 13 

which speaks so touchingly and pathetically in some o his 
later poems, he accompanied that lady on a visit to Stock- 
holm, where he formed the acquaintance of the Crown Prince. 

The great political events of this period were not without 
their effect on Schlegel's mind, and in 1813 he came forward 
as a political writer, when his powerful pen was not without 
its effect in rousing the German mind from the torpor into 
which it had sunk beneath the victorious military despotism 
of France. But he was called upon to take a more active 
part in the measures of these stirring times, and in this year 
entered the service of the Crown Prince of Sweden, as secre- 
tary and counsellor at head quarters. For this Prince he had 
a great personal regard, and estimated highly both his virtues 
as a man and his talents as a general. The services he ren- 
dered the Swedish Prince were duly appreciated and rewarded, 
among other marks of distinction by a patent of nobility, in 
virtue of which he prefixed the "Von" to his paternal name 
of Schlegel. The Emperor Alexander, of whose religious ele- 
vation of character he always spoke with admiration, also 
honoured him with his intimacy and many tokens of esteem. 

Upon the fall of Napoleon he returned to Coppet with 
Madame de Stael, and in 1815 published a second volume of 
his Poetical Works, (Heildelberg, 1811—1815, 2nd edit., 
2 vols., 1820). These are characterized not merely by the 
brilliancy and purity of the language, but also by the va- 
riety and richness of the imagery. Among these the Avion, 
Pygmalion, and Der Heilige Lucas (St. Luke,) the Sonnets, 
and the sublime elegy, Rhine, dedicated to Madame de Stael, 
deserve especial mention, and give him a just claim to a poet's 
crown. 

On the death of his friend and patroness in 1819, he 
accepted the offer of a professor's chair in Bonn, where he 
married a daughter of Professor Paulus. This union, as short- 
lived as the firstj was followed by a separation in 1 820. In 



14 THE 'LITERARY LIFE OF 

bis new position of academic tutor, wLile lie diligently pro- 
moted the study of the fine arts and sciences, both of the 
Ancient and the Moderns, he applied himself with peculiar 
ardour to Oriental literature, and particularly to the Sanscrit. 
As a fruit of these studies, he published his Indian Lihrary^ 
(2 vols., Bonn, 1820 — 26); he also set up a press for printing 
the great Sanscrit work, the Ramcijana (Bonn, 1825). He also 
edited the Sanscrit text, with a Latin translation, of the Bhaga- 
vad-Gita, an episode of the great Indian Epos, the Mahdh- 
lidrata (Bonn, 1829). About this period his Oriental studies 
took him to France, and afterwards to England, where, in 
London and in the college libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, 
and the East India College at Hailesbury, he carefully exa- 
mined the various collections of Oriental MSS. On his return 
he was appointed Superintendent of the Museum of Antiqui- 
ties, and in 1827 delivered at Berlin a course of Lectures ou 
the Theory and History of the Fine Arts, (Berlin, 1827). 
These were followed by his Criticisms, (Berlin, 1828), and 
his JRefiexion snr V Etude des Langues Asiatiques, addressed to 
Sir James Mackintosh. Being accused of a secret leaning to 
Roman Catholicism, (Kryptocatholicisme,) he ably defended 
himself in a reply entitled Explication de quelques Mal-en- 
tendus, (Berlin, 1828.) 

A. W. Von Schlegel, besides being a Member of the Legion 
of Honour, was invested with the decorations of several other 
Orders. He wrote French with as much facility as his native 
language, and many French journals were proud to number 
him among their contributors. He .also assisted Madame de 
Stael in her celebrated work De I'Allemagne, and superin- 
tended the publication .of her posthumous Considerations sur 
la Eevolution Frangaise. 

After this long career of successful literary activity, A. 
W. Von Schlegel died at Bonn, 12 May. 1845. His death 
was thus noticed in the Athenc^um: — 



AUGUSTUS WILLIAM VON SCHLEGEL. 15 

" This Illustrious writer was, in conjunction with his brother 
Frederick, as most European readers well know, the founder 
of the modern romantic school of German literature, and as 
a critic fought many a hard battle for his faith. The clear- 
ness of his insight into poetical and dramatic truth, English- 
men will always be apt to estimate by the fact that it pro- 
cured for himself and for his countrymen the freedom of 
Shakspeare's enchanted world, and the taste of all the mar- 
vellous things that, like the treasures of Aladdin's garden, 
are fruit and gem at once upon its immortal boughs : — French- 
men will not readily forget that he disparaged Moliere. The 
merit of Schlegel's dramatic criticism ought not, however, to 
be thus limited. Englishmen themselves are deeply indebted 
to him. His Lectures, translated by Black, excited great 
interest here when first published, some thirty years since, 
and have worthily taken a permanent place in our libraries." 

His collection of books, which was rather extensive, and 
rich in Oriental, especially Sanscrit literature, was sold by 
auction in Bonn, December, 1845. It appears by a chrono- 
logical list prefixed to the catalogue, that reckoning both his 
separate publications and those contributed to periodicals, his 
printed works number no fewer than 12G. Besides these he 
left many unpublished manuscripts, which, says the Athenwum, 
" he bequeathed to the celebrated archasologist, Welcker, pro- 
fessor at the Royal University of Bonn, with a request that 
he would cause them to be published." 



DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 



LECTURE I. 

Introduction — Spirit of True Criticism — Difference of Taste between tlie 
Ancients and Moderns — Classical and Romantic Poetry and Art — Divi- 
sion of Dramatic Literature ; the Ancients, their Imitators, and the 
Romantic Poets. 

The object of the present series of Lectures will be to combine 
the theory of Dramatic Art with its history^ and to bring 
before my auditors at once its principles and its models. 

It belongs to the general philosophical theory of poetry, and 
the other fine arts, to establish the fundamental laws of the 
beautifuL Every art, on the other hand, has its oAvn special 
theory, designed to teach the limits, the difficulties, and the 
means by which it must be regulated in its attempt to realize 
those laws. For this purpose, certain scientific investigations 
are indispensable to the artist, although they have but little 
attraction for those whose admiration of art is confined to 
the enjoyment of the actual productions of distinguished 
minds. The general theory, on the other hand, seeks to 
analyze that essential faculty of human nature — the sense of 
the beautiful, which at once calls the fine arts into existence, 
and accounts for the satisfaction which arises from the con- 
templation of them; and also points out the relation which 
subsists between this and all other sentient and cognizant 
faculties of man. To the man of thought and speculation^ 
therefore, it is of the highest importance, but by itself alone 
it is quite inadequate to guide and direct the essays and prac- 
tice of art. 

Now, the history of the fine arts informs us what has been, 

B 



18 SPIRIT OF TRUE CRITICISM. 

and the tlieory teaches what ought to be accomplished by 
them. But without some intermediate and connecting link, 
both would remain independent and separate from one and 
other, and each by itself, inadequate and defective. This 
connecting link is furnished by criticism, which both eluci- 
dates the history of the arts, and makes the theory fruitful. 
The comparing together, and judging of the existing produc- 
tions of the human mind, necessarily throws light upon the 
conditions which are indispensable to the creation of original 
and masterly works of art. 

Ordinarily, indeed, men entertain a very erroneous notion 
of criticism, and understand by it nothing more than a certain 
shrewdness in detecting and exposing the faults of a work .of 
art. As I have devoted the greater part of my life to this pur- 
suit, I may be excused if, by way of preface, I seek to lay 
before my auditors my own ideas of the true genius of criticism. 

We see numbers of men, and even whole nations, so 
fettered by the conventions of education and habits of life, 
that, even in the appreciation of the fine arts, they cannot 
shake them off. Nothing to them appears natural, appro- 
priate, or beautiful, which is alien to their own language, 
manners, and social relations. With this exclusive mode of 
seeing and feeling, it is no doubt possible to attain, by means 
of cultivation, to great nicety of discrimination within the 
narrow circle to which it limits and circumscribes them. But 
no man can be a true critic or connoisseur without univer- 
sality of mind, without that flexibility which enables him, 
by renouncing all personal predilections and blind habits, to 
adapt himself to the peculiarities of other ages and nations — ■ 
to feel them, as it were, from their proper central point, and, 
what ennobles human nature, to recognise and duly appreciate 
whatever is beautiful and grand under the external accessories 
which were necessary to its embodying, even though occa- 
sionally they may seem to disguise and distort it. There is 
no monopoly of poetry for particular ages and nations ; and 
consequently that despotism in taste, which would seek to 
invest with universal authority the rules which at first, per- 
haps, were but arbitrarily advanced, is but a vain and empty 
pretension. Poetry, taken in its widest acceptation, as the 
power of creating what is beautiful, and representing it to 
the eye or the ear, is a universal gift of Heaven, being shared 



APPLICATION TO POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 19 

to a certain extent even by those whom we call barbarians 
and savages. Internal excellence is alone decisive, and 
where this exists, we must not allow ourselves to be repelled 
by the external appearance. Everything must be traced up 
to the root of human nature : if it has sprung from thence, it 
has an undoubted worth of its own ; but if, without possessing 
a living germ, it is merely externally attached thereto, it will 
never thrive nor acquire a proper growth. Many productions 
which appear at first sight dazzling phenomena in the pro- 
vince of the fine arts, and which as a whole have been 
honoured with the appellation of works of a golden age, re- 
semble the mimic gardens of children : impatient to witness 
the work of their hands, they break off here and there 
branches and flowers, and plant them in the earth ; every- 
thing at first assumes a noble appearance : the childish 
gardener struts proudly up and down among his showy beds, 
till the rootless plants begin to droop, and hang their 
withered leaves and blossoms, and nothing soon remains but 
the bare twigs, while the dark forest, on which no art or care 
was ever bestowed, and which towered up towards heaven 
long before human remembrance, bears every blast unshaken, 
and fills the solitary beholder with religious awe. 

Let us now apply the idea which we have been developing, 
of the universality of true criticism, to the history of poetry 
and the fine arts. This, like the so-called universal history, 
we generally limit (even though beyond this range there 
may be much that is both remarkable and worth knowing) 
to whatever has had a nearer or more remote influence on the 
present civilisation of Europe : consequently, to the works of 
the Greeks and Romans, and of those of the modern European 
nations, who first and chiefly distinguished themselves in art 
and literature. It is well known that, three centuries and 
a-half ago, the study of ancient literature received a new life, 
by the diffusion of the Grecian language (for the Latin never 
became extinct) ; the classical authors were brought to light, 
and rendered universally accessible by means of the press ; 
and the monuments of ancient art were diligently disinterred 
and preserved. All this powerfully excited the human mind, 
■ and formed a decided epoch in the history of human civilisa- 
tion ; its manifold effects have extended to our times, and will 
yet extend to an incalculable series of ages. But the study 

B 2 



20 DANTE — ARIOSTO TASSO — CAMOENS. 

of the ancients was forthwitli most fatally perverted. The 
learned, who were chiefly in the possession of this knowledge, 
and who were incapable of distinguishing themseWes by works 
of their own, claimed for the ancients an unlimited authority, 
and with great appearance of reason, since they are models in 
their kind. Maintaining that nothing could be hoped for the 
human mind but from an imitation of antiquity, in the works 
of the moderns they only valued what resembled, or seemed 
to bear a resemblance to, those of the ancients. Everything 
oLse they rejected as barbarous and unnatural. With the 
great poets and artists it was quite otherwise. However 
strong their enthusiasm for the ancients, and however deter- 
mined their purpose of entering into competition with them, 
they were compelled by their independence and originality of 
mind, to strike out a path of their own, and to impress upon 
their productions the stamp of their own genius. Such was 
the case with Dante among the Italians, the father of modern 
poetry ; acknowledging Virgil for his master, he has pro- 
duced a work which, of all others, most differs from the 
iEneid, and in our opinion far excels its pretended model in 
power, truth, compass, and profundity. It was the same 
afterwards with Ariosto, who has most unaccountably been 
compared to Homer, for nothing can be more unlike. So in 
art with Michael Angeio and Raphael, who had no doubt 
deeply studied the antique. When we ground our judgment 
of modern painters merely on their greater or less resemblance 
to the ancients, we must necessarily be unjust towards them, 
as Winkelmann undoubtedly has in the case of Raphael. As 
the poets for the most part had their share of scholarship, it 
gave rise to a curious struggle between their natural inclina- 
tion and their imaginary duty. When they sacrificed to the 
latter, they were praised by the learned ; but by yielding to 
the former, they became the favourites of the people. What 
preserves the heroic poems of a Tasso and a Camoens to this 
day alive in the hearts and on the lips of their countrymen, is 
by no means their imperfect resemblance to Virgil, or even 
to Homer, but in Tasso the tender feeling of chivalrous love 
and honour, and in Camoens the glowing inspiration of heroic 
patriotism. 

Those very ages, nations, and ranks, who felt least the want 
of a poetry of their own, were the most assiduous in their imita- 



THEIR IMITATION OF THE ANCIENTS. 21 

tion of the ancients; accordingly, its results are but dull scliool 
exercises, which at best excite a frigid admiration. But in 
the fine arts, mere imitation is always fruitless ; even what 
we borrow from others, to assume a true poetical shape, must, 
as it were, be born again within us. Of what avail is all 
foreign imitation ? Art cannot exist without nature, and man 
can give nothing to his fellow-men but himself. 

Genuine successors and true rivals of the ancients, who, by 
virtue of congenial talents and cultivation have walked in 
their path and worked in their spirit, have ever been as rare 
as their mechanical spiritless copyists are common. Seduced 
by the form, the great body of critics have been but too in- 
dulgent to these servile imitators. These were held up as 
correct modern classics, while the great truly living and 
popular poets, whose reputation was a part of their nations' 
glory, and to whose sublimity it was impossible to be altoge- 
ther blind, were at best but tolerated as rude and wild natural 
geniuses. But the unqualified separation of genius and taste 
on which such a judgment proceeds, is altogether untenable. 
Genius is the almost unconscious choice of the highest 
degi-eg., of ^ excellence^^and, coriseg[uently, it is taste in its , 
Kigliestactiviti^'" " '^"~'-"-"" ~" ■'^~-------..,,,.™^ 

'''•"'l^this^ state, nearly, matters continued till a period not far 
back, when several inquiring minds, chiefly Germans, endea- , 
voured to clear up the misconception, and to give the ancients 
their due, without being insensible to the merits of the 
moderns, although of a totally different kind. The apparent 
contradiction did not intimidate them. The groundwork of j 
human nature is no doubt everywhere the same ; but in all 
our investigations, we may observe that, throughout the whole~~\ 
range of nature, there is no elementary power so simple, but 
that it is capable of dividing and diverging into opposite ^/ 
directions. The whole play of vital motion hinges on har- 
mony and contrast. Why, then, should not this phenomenon 
recur on a grander scale in the history of man 1 In this idea 
we have perhaps discovered the true key to the ancient and 
modern history of poetry and the fine arts. Those who 
adopted it, gave to the peculiar spirit of modern art, as con- ^ 
trasted with the antique or classical, the name of romatdic. ^ 
The term is certainly not inappropriate ; the word is derived 
from romance — the name originally given to the languages y 



22 CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC POETRY AND ART. 

which were formed from the mixture of the Latin and the old 
Teutonic dialects, in the same manner as modern civilisation 
is the fruit of the heterogeneous union of the peculiarities 
of the northern nations and the fragments of antiquity ; 
whereas the civilisation of the ancients was much more of 
a piece. 

The distinction which we have just stated can hardly fail 
to appear well founded, if it can be shown, so far as our 
knowledge of antiquity extends, that the same contrast in the 
labours of the ancients and moderns runs symmetrically, I 
might almost say systematically, throughout every branch of 
art — that it is as evident in music and the plastic arts as in 
poetry. This is a problem which, in its full extent, still 
remains to be demonstrated, though, on particular por- 
tions of it, many excellent observations have been advanced 
already. 

Among the foreign authors who wrote before this school 
can be said to have been formed in German}?-, we may men- 
tion Rousseau, who acknowledged the contrast in music, and 
showed that rhythm and melody were the prevailing prin- 
ciples of ancient, as harmony is that of modern music. In 
his prejudices against harmony, however, we cannot at all 
concur. On the subject of the arts of desig-n an ingenious 
observation was made by Hemsterhuys, that the ancient 
painters were perhaps too much of sculptors, and the mo- 
dern sculptors too much of painters. This is the exact 
point of difference; for, as I shall distinctly show in the 
sequel, the spirit of ancient art and poetry is plastic, but that 
of the moderns picturesque. 

By an example taken from another art, that of architec- 
ture, I shall endeavour to illustrate what I mean by this 
contrast. Throughout the Middle Ages there prevailed, and 
in the latter centuries of that Eera was carried to perfection, 
a style of architecture, which has been called Gothic,^ but 
ought really to have been termed old German. When, on 
the general revival of classical antiquity, the imitation of 
Grecian architecture became prevalent, and but too frequently 
without a due regard to the difference of climate and manners 
or to the purpose of the building, the zealots of this new taste, 
passing a sweeping sentence of condemnation on the Gothic, 
reprobated it as tasteless, gloomy, and barbarous. This was 



GRECIAN AND GOTHIC STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE. 23 

in some degree pardonable in the Italians, among wliom a 
love for ancient architecture, cherished by hereditary remains 
of classical edifices, and the similarity of their climate to that 
of the Greeks and Romans, might, in some sort, be said to be 
innate. But we Northerns are not so easily to be talked out 
of the powerful, solemn impressions which seize upon the 
mind at entering a Gothic cathedral. We feel, on the con- 
trary, a strong desire to investigate and to justify the source 
of this impression. A very slight attention will convince us, 
that the Gothic architecture displays not only an extraordi- 
nary degree of mechanical skill, but also a marvellous power 
of invention ; and, on a closer examination, we recognize its 
profound significance, and perceive that as well as the Grecian 
it constitutes in itself a complete and finished system. 

To the application ! — The Pantheon is not more different 
from Westminster Abbey or the church of St. Stephen at 
Vienna, than the structure of a tragedy of Sophocles from a 
drama of Shakspeare. The comparison between these won- 
derful productions of poetry and architecture might be carried 
still farther. But does our admiration of the one compel us 
to depreciate the other "? May we not admit that each is 
great and admirable in its kind, although the one is, and 
is meant to be, different from the other? The experiment is 
worth attempting. We will quarrel with no man for his pre- 
dilection either for the Grecian or the Gothic. The world is 
wide, and affords room for a great diversity of objects. Nar- 
row and blindly adopted prepossessions will never constitute 
a genuine critic or connoisseur, who ought, on the contrary, to 
possess the power of dwelling with liberal impartiality on the 
most discrepant views, renouncing the while all personal incli- 
nations. 

For our present object, the justification, namely, of the grand 
division which we lay down in the history of art, and accord- 
ing to which we conceive ourselves equally warranted in 
establishing the same division in dramatic literature, it might 
be sufficient merely to have stated this contrast between the 
ancient, or classical, and the romantic. But as there are ex- 
clusive admirers of the ancients, who never cease asserting 
that all deviation from them is merely the whim of a new 
school of critics, who, expressing themselves in language full 
of mystery, cautiously avoid conveying their sentiments in a 



24 THE GREEKS THEIR MENTAL CULTURE, 

tangible sliape. I shall endeavour to explain the origin and 
spirit of the roviantic, and then leave the world to judge if 
the use of the word, and of the idea which it is intended to 
convey, be thereby justified. 

The mental culture of the Greeks was a finished education 
in the school of Nature. Of a beautiful and noble race, 
endowed with susceptible senses and a cheerful spirit under a 
mild sky, they lived and bloomed in the full health of exist- 
ence; and, favoured by a rare combination of circumstances, 
accomplished all that the finite nature of man is capable of. 
The whole of their art and poetry is the expression of a con- 
sciousness of this harmony of all their faculties. They 
invented the poetry of joy. 

Their religion was the deification of the powers of nature 
and of the earthly life : but this worship, which, among other 
nations, clouded the imagination with hideous shapes, and 
hardened the heart to cruelty, assumed, among the Greeks, 
a mild, a grand, and a dignified form. Superstition, too often 
the tyrant of the human faculties, seemed to have here con- 
tributed to their freest development. It cherished the arts 
by which it was adorned, and its idols became the models of 
ideal beauty. 

But however highly the Greeks may have succeeded in the 
Beautiful, and even in the Moral, we cannot concede any 
higher character to their civilisation than that of a refined 
and ennobled sensuality. Of course this must be understood 
generally. The conjectures of a few philosophers, and the 
irradiations of poetical inspiration, constitute an occasional 
exception. Man can never altogether turn aside his thoughts 
from infinity, and some obscure recollections will always 
remind him of the home he has lost; but we are now speak- 
ing of the predominant tendency of his endeavours. 

Religion is the root of human existence. Were it possible 
for man to renounce all religion, including that which is un- 
conscious, independent of the will, he would become a mere 
surface without any internal substance. When this centre is 
disturbed, the whole system of the mental faculties and 
feelings takes a new shape. 

And this is what has actually taken place in modern 
Europe through the introduction of Christianity. This sub- 
lime and beneficent religion has regenerated the ancient 



THE AGE OF CHIVALRY. 25 

world from its state of exhaustion and debasement ; it is 
tlie guiding principle in the history of modern nations, and 
even at this day, when many suppose they have shaken off 
its authority, they still find themselves much more influenced 
by it in their views of human affairs than they themselves are 
aware. 

After Christianity, the character of Europe has, since the 
commencement of the Middle Ages, been chiefly influenced 
by the Germanic race of northern conquerors, who infused 
new life and vigour into a degenerated people. The stern 
nature of the North drives man back within himself; and 
what is lost in the free 'sportive development of the senses, 
must, in noble dispositions, be compensated by earnestness of 
mind. Hence the honest cordiality with which Christianity 
was welcomed by all the Teutonic tribes, so that among no 
other race of men has it penetrated more deeply into the 
inner man, displayed more powerful effects, or become more 
interwoven with all human feelings and sensibilities. 

The rough, but honest heroism of the northern conquerors, 
by its admixture with the sentiments of Christianity, gave 
rise to chivalry, of which the object was, by vows which 
should be looked upon as sacred, to guard the practice of arms 
from every rude and ungenerous abuse of force into which it 
was so likely to sink. 

With the virtues of chivalry was associated a new and 
purer spirit of love, an inspired homage for genuine female 
worth, which was now revered as the acme of human excel- 
lence, and, maintained by religion itself under the image of 
a virgin mother, infused into all hearts a mysterious sense of 
the purity of love. 

As Christianity did not, like the heathen worship, rest 
satisfied with certain external acts, but claimed an authority 
over the whole inward man and the most hidden movements 
of the heart ; the feeling of moral independence took refuge 
in the domain of honour, a worldly morality, as it were, which 
subsisting alongside of, was often at variance with that of 
religion, but yet in so far resembling it that it never calcu- 
lated consequences, but consecrated unconditionally certain 
principles of action, which like the articles of faith, were 
elevated far beyond the investigatiou of a casuistical reasoning. 

Chivalry, love, and honour, together with religion itself, 



26 SENSUALITY OF THE GREEKS. 

are the subjects of that poetry of nature which poured itself 
out iu the Middle Ages with incredible fulness, and preceded 
the more artistic cultivation of the romantic spirit. This age 
had also its mythology, consisting of chivalrous tales and 
legends ; but its wonders and its heroism were the very 
reverse of those of the ancient mythology. 

Several inquirers who, in other respects, entertain the same 

conception of the peculiarities of the moderns, and trace them 

to the same source that we do, have placed the essence of the 

northern poetry in melancholy ; and to this, when properly 

, understood, we have nothing to object. 

Among the Greeks human nature was in itself all-sufScient ; 
it was conscious of no defects, and aspired to no higher perfec- 
tiou than that which it could actually attain by the exercise 
of its own energies. We, however, are taught by superior 
wisdom that man, through a grievous transgression, forfeited 
the place for which he was originally destined ; and that the 
sole destination of his earthly existence is to struggle to regain 
his lost position, which, if left to his own strength, he can 
never accomplish. The old religion of the senses sought no 
higher possession than outward and perishable blessings ; and 
immortality, so far as it was believed, stood shadow-like in 
the obscure distance, a faint dream of this sunny waking 
life. The very reverse of all this is the case with the Chris- 
tian view : every thing jSnite and mortal is lost in the con- 
templation of infinity; life has become shadow and darkness, 
and the first day of our real existence dawns in the world 
beyond the grave. Such a religion must weaken the vague \ 
foreboding, which slumbers in every feeling heart, into a dis- 
tinct consciousness that the happiness after which we are 
here striving is unattainable ; that no external object can ever 
entirely fill our souls; and that all earthly enjoyment is but 
a fleeting and momentary illusion. When the soul, resting 
as it were under the willows of exile*, breathes out its long- 
ing for its distant home, what else but melancholy can be 
the key-note of its songs'? Hence the poetry of the ancients 
was the poetry of enjoyment, and ours is that of desire: the 

* Trauerweiden der verhannung , literally the weeping willows of 
banishment, an allusion, as every reader must know, to the 137th Psalm. 
Linnseus, from this Psalm, calls the weeping willow Sali^ Babylonica. — 
Trans. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN ART AND POETRY. 27 

former has its foundation in the scene which is present, while 
the latter hovers betwixt recollection and hope. Let me not 
be understood as affirming that everything flows in one 
unvarying strain of wailing and complaint, and that the voice 
of melancholy is always loudly heard. As the austerity of 
tragedy was not incompatible with the joyous views of the 
Greeks, so that romantic poetry whose origin I have been 
describing, can assume every tone, even that of the liveliest 
joy; but still it will always, in some indescribable way, bear 
traces of the source from which it originated. The feeling of 
the moderns is, upon the whole, more inward, their fancy more 
incorporeal, and their thoughts more contemplative. In 
nature, it is true, the boundaries of objects run more into 
one another, and things are not so distinctly separated as 
we must exhibit them in order to convey distinct notions of 
them. 

The Grecian ideal of human nature was perfect unison and 
proportion between all the powers, — a natural harmony. 
The moderns, on the contrary, have arrived at the conscious- 
ness of an internal discord which renders such an ideal impos- 
sible J and hence the endeavour of their poetry is to reconcile 
these two worlds between which we find ourselves divided, 
and to blend them indissolubly together. The impressions of 
the senses are to be hallowed, as it were, by a mysterious con- 
nexion with higher feelings; and the soul, on the other hand, 
embodies its forebodings, or indescribable intuitions of infinity, 
in types and symbols borrowed from the visible world. 

In Grecian art and poetry we find an original and uncon- 
scious unity of form and matter; in the modern, so far as it 
has remained true to its own spirit, we observe a keen struggle 
to unite the two, as being naturally in opposition to each 
other. The Grecian executed what it proposed in the utmost 
perfection; but the modern can only do justice to its endea- 
vours after what is infinite by approximation ; and, from a 
certain appearance of imperfection, is in greater danger of not 
•being duly appreciated. 

It -would lead us too far, if in the separate arts of architec- 
ture, music, and painting (for the moderns have never had a 
sculpture of their own), we should endeavour to point out the 
distinctions which we have here announced, to show the con- 
trast observable in the character of the same arts among the 



28 THE GREEK DRAMATISTS — THEIR IJUTATORS. 

ancients and moderns, and at the same time to demonstrate 
the kindred aim of both. 

Neither can we here enter into a more particular considera- 
tion of the different kinds and forms of romantic poetry in 
general, but must return to our more immediate subject, 
which is dramatic art and literature. The division of this, 
as of the other departments of art, into the antique and the 
romantic, at once points out to us the course which we have 
to pursue. 

We shall begin with the ancients; then proceed to their 
imitators, their genuine or supposed successors among the 
moderns; and lastly, we shall consider those poets of later 
.times, who, either disregarding the classical models, or pur- 
posely deviating from them, have struck out a path for them- 
selves. 

Of the ancient dramatists, the Greeks alone are of any im- 
portance. In this branch of art the Eomans were at first mere 
translators of the Greeks, and afterwards imitators, and not 
alwp.ys very successful ones. Besides, of their dramatic 
labours very little has been preserved. Among modern nations 
an endeavour to restore the ancieut stage, and, where possible, 
to improve it, has been shown in a very lively manner by the 
Italians and the French. In other nations, also, attempts of 
the same kind, more or less earnest, have at times, especially of 
late, been made in tragedy; for in comedy, the form under 
which it appears in Plautus and Terence has certainly been 
more generally prevalent. Of all studied imitations of the 
ancient tragedy the French is the most brilliant essay, has 
acquired the greatest renown, and consequently deserves the 
most attentive consideration. After the French come the 
modern Italians; viz., Metastasio and Alfieri. The romantic 
drama, which, strictly speaking, can neither be called tragedy 
nor comedy in the sense of the ancients, is indigenous only to 
England and Spain. In both it began to flourish at the same 
time, somewhat more than two hundred years ago, being 
brought to perfection by Shakspeare in the former country, 
and in the latter by Lope de Vega. 

The German stage is the last of all, and has been influenced 
in the greatest variety of Avays by all those which preceded it. 
It will be most appropriate, therefore, to enter upon its con- 
sideration last of ail. By this course we shall be better 



THE ROMANTIC POETS. 29 

enabled to judge of tlie directions whicL it lias hitherto taken, 
and to point out the prospects which are still open to it. 

When I promise to go through the history of the Greek and 
Koman, ' of the Italian and French, and of the English and 
Spanish theatres, in the few hours which are dedicated to these 
Lectures, I wish it to be understood that I can only enter into 
such an account of them as will comprehend their most essen- 
tial peculiarities under general points of view. Although I 
confine myself to a single domain of poetry, still the mass of 
materials comprehended within it is too extensiye to be taken 
in by the eye at once, and this would be the case were I even 
to limit myself to one of its subordinate departments. We 
might read ourselves to death with farces. In the ordinary 
histories of literature the poets of one language, and one 
description, are enumerated in succession, without any further 
discrimination, like the Assyrian and Egyptian kings in the 
old universal histories. There are persons who have an un- 
conquerable passion for the titles of books, and we willingly 
concede to them the privilege of increasing their number by 
books on the titles of books. It is much the same thing, how- 
ever, as in the history of a war to give the name of every 
soldier who fought in the ranks of the hostile armies. It is 
usual, however, to speak only of the generals, and those who 
may have performed actions of distinction. In like manner f 
the battles of the human mind, if I may use the expression, ) 
have been won by a few intellectual heroes. The history of 
the development of art and its various forms may be therefore 
exhibited in the characters of a number, by no means consider- 
able, of elevated and creative minds. 



30 DEFINITION OF THE DRAMA. 



LECTURE II. 

Definition of the Drama — View of tlie Theatres of all Nations — Theatrical 
Effect — Importance of the Stage — Principal Species of the Drama. 

Before, however, entering upon such a history as we have 
now described, it will be necessary to examine what is meant 
by dramatic, theatrical, tragic, and comic. 

What is dramatic ? To many the answer will seem very 
easy : where various persons are introduced conversing toge- 
ther, and the poet does not speak in his own person. This 
is, however, merely the first external foundation of the form ; 
and that is dialogue. But the characters may express thoughts 
and sentiments without operating any change on each other, 
and so leave the minds of both in exactly the same state in 
which they were at the commencement ; in such a case, however 
interesting the conversation may be, it cannot be said to 
possess a dramatic interest. I shall make this clear by allud- 
ing to a more tranquil species of dialogue, not adapted for the 
stage, the philosophic. When, in Plato, Socrates asks the 
conceited sophist Hippias, what is the meaning of the beauti- 
ful, the latter is at once ready with a superficial answer, but 
is afterwards compelled by the ironical objections of Socrates 
to give up his former definition, and to grope about him for 
other ideas, till, ashamed at last and irritated at the superiority 
of the sage who has convicted him of his ignorance, he is forced 
to quit the field: this dialogue is not merely philosophically 
instructive, but arrests the attention like a drama in miniature. 
And justly, therefore, has this lively movement in the thoughts, 
this stretch of expectation for tlie issue, in a word, the dramatic 
cast of the dialogues of Plato, been always celebrated. 

From this we may conceive wherein consists the great 
charm of dramatic poetry. Action is the true enjoyment of 
life, nay, life itself. Mere passive enjoyments may lull us 
into a state of listless complacency, but even then, if pos- 
sessed of the least internal activity, we cannot avoid being 
soon wearied. The great bulk of mankind merely from their 



ART or THE DRAMATIC POET. 31 

Situation in life, or from tbeir incapacity for extrordinary exer- 
tions, are confined within a narrow circle of insignificant opera- 
tions. Their days flow on in succession under the sleepy rule of 
custom, their life advances by an insensible progress, and the 
bursting torrent of the first passions of youth soon settles 
into a stagnant marsh. From the discontent which this 
occasions they are compelled to have recourse to all sorts of 
diversions, which uniformly consist in a species of occupation 
that may be renounced at pleasure, and though a struggle 
with difficulties, yet with difficulties that are easily sur- 
mounted. But of all diversions the theatre is undoubtedly 
the most entertaining. Here we may see others act even 
when we cannot act to any great purpose ourselves. The 
highest object of human activity is man, and in the drama 
we see men, measuring their powers with each other, as in- 
tellectual and moral beings, either as friends or foes, influencing 
each other by their opinions, sentiments, and passions, and 
decisively determining their reciprocal relations and circum- 
stances. The art of the poet accordingly consists in separating 
from the fable whatever does not essentially belong to it, 
whatever, in the dpaly necessities of real life, and the petty 
occupations to which they give rise, interrupts the progress of 
important actions, and concentrating within a narrow space a 
number of events calculated to attract the minds of the 
hearers and to fill them with attention and expectation. In 
this manner he gives us a renovated picture of life ; a com- 
pendium of whatever is moving and progressive in human 
existence. 

But this is not all. Even in a lively oral narration, it is not 
unusual to introduce persons in conversation with each other, 
and to give a corresponding variety to the tone and the ex- 
pression. But the gaps, which these conversations leave in 
the story, the narrator fills up in his own name with a 
description of the accompanying circumstances, and other 
particulars. The dramatic poet must renounce all such 
expedients; but for this he is richly recompensed in the 
following invention. He requires each of the characters in 
his story to be personated by a living individual ; that 
this individual should, in sex, age, and figure, meet as near 
as may be the prevalent conceptions of his fictitious ori- 
ginal, nay, assume his entire personality; that every speech 



32 INVENTION OF THE DRAMATIC ART. 

should be delivered in a suitable tone of voice, and ac- 
companied by appropriate action and gesture ; and that 
those external circumstances should be added which are 
necessary to give the hearers a clear idea of what is going 
forward. Moreover, these representatives of the creatures 
of his imagination must appear in the costume belonging to 
their assumed rank, and to their age and country; partly 
for the sake of greater resemblance, and partly because, 
even in dress, there is something characteristic. Lastly, he 
must see them placed in a locality, which, in some degree, 
resembles that where, according to his fable, the action took 
place, because this also contributes to the resemblance : he 
places them, i. e., on a scene. All this brings us to the idea 
of the theatre. It is evident that the very form of dramatic 
poetry, that is, the exhibition of an action by dialogue 
without the aid of narrative, implies the theatre as its neces- 
sary complement. We allow that there are dramatic works 
which were not originally designed for the stage, and not cal- 
culated to produce any great effect there, which nevertheless 
afford great pleasure in the perusal. I am, however, very 
much inclined to doubt whether they would produce the same 
strong impression, with which they affect us, upon a person 
who had never seen or heard a description of a theatre. In 
reading dramatic works, we are accustomed ourselves to 
supply the representation. 

The invention of dramatic art, and of the theatre, seems a 
very obvious and natural one. Man has a great disposition 
to mimicry; when he enters vividly into the situation, senti- 
ments, and passions of others, he involuntarily puts on a resem- 
blance to them in his gestures. Children are perpetually going 
out of themselves ; it is one of their chief amusements to repre- 
sent those grown people whom they have had an opportunity 
of observing, or whatever strikes their fancy; and with the 
happy pliancy of their imagination, they can exhibit all the 
characteristics of any dignity they may choose to assume, be 
it that of a father, a schoolmaster, or a king. But one step 
more was requisite for the invention of the drama, namely, 
to separate and extract the mimetic elements from the sepa- 
rate parts of social life, and to present them to itself again 
collectively in one mass ; yet in many nations it has not been 
taken. In the very minute description of ancient Egypt, 



VIEW OP THE THEATRES OF ALL NATIO>;S. 33 

given by Herodotus and other writers, T do not recollect ob- 
serving the smallest trace of it. The Etruscans, on the con- 
trary, who in many respects resembled the Egyptians, had 
theatrical representations; and, what is singular enough, 
the Etruscan name for an actor, histrio, is preserved in living 
languages even to the present day. The Arabians and Per- 
sians, though possessed of a rich poetical literature, are 
unacquainted with the drama. It was the same with Europe 
in the Middle Ages. On the introduction of Christianity, the 
plays handed down from the Greeks and Romans were set 
aside, partly because they had reference to heathen ideas, and 
partly because they had degenerated into the most shameless 
immorality; nor were they again revived till after the lapse 
of nearly a thousand years. Even in the fourteenth century, 
in that complete picture which Boccacio gives us of the exist- 
ing frame of society, we do not find the smallest trace of plays. 
In place of them they had simply their conteurs, menestriers. 
jongleurs. On the other hand we are by no means entitled to 
assume that the invention of the drama was made once for all 
in the world, to be afterwards borrowed by one people ircm an- 
other. The English circumnavigators tell us, that among the 
islanders of the South Seas, who in every mental qualifica- 
tion and acquirement are at the lowest grade of civilisation, 
they yet observed a rude drama, in which a common incident 
in life was imitated for the sake of diversion. And to pass 
to the other extremity of the world, among the Indians, 
whose social institutions and mental cultivation descend un- 
questionably from a remote antiquity, plays were known long 
before they could have experienced any foreign influence. It 
has lately been made knoAvn to Europe that they possess a rich 
dramatic literature, which goes backward througli nearly two 
thousand years. The only specimen of their plays (nataks) 
hitherto known to us is the delightful Sakontala, which, not- 
withstanding the foreign colouring of its native climate, bears 
in its general structure such a striking resemblance to our 
own romantic drama, that we might be inclined to suspect we 
owe this resemblance to the predilection for Shakspeare en- 
tertained by the English translator (Sir William Jones), if his 
fidelity were not attested by other learned orientalists. The 
drama, indeed, seems to have been a favourite amusement of 
the Native Princes ; and to owe to this circumstance that 

c 



34 THE stage: TNDIA CHINA— ROME— GREECE. 

tone of refined society wliicli prevails in it. Uggargini 
(Oude 1) is specially named as a seat of this art. Under the 
Mahommedan rulers it naturally fell into decay: the national 
tongue was strange to them, Persian being the language of 
the court ; and moreover, the mythology which was so inti- 
mately interwoven with poetry was irreconcilable with their 
religious notions. Generally, indeed, we know of no Mahom- 
medan nation that has accomplished any thing in dramatic 
poetry, or even had any notion of it. The Chinese again have 
their standing national theatre, standing perhaps in every 
sense of the word; and I do not doubt, that m the establish- 
ment of arbitrary rules, and the delicate observance of insig- 
nificant conventionalities, they leave the most correct Euro- 
peans very far behind them. When the new European stage 
sprung up in the fifteenth century, with its allegorical and 
religious pieces called Moralities and Mysteries, its rise was 
uninfluenced by the ancient dramatists, who did not come 
into circulation till some time afterwards. In those rude 
beginnings lay the germ of the romantic drama as a peculiar 
invention. 

In this wide diffusion of theatrical entertainments, the 
great difference in dramatic talent which subsists between 
nations equally distinguished for intellect, is something remark- 
able ; so that theatrical talent would seem to be^ a peculiar 
quality, essentially distinct from the poetical gift in general. 
We do not wonder at the contrast in this respect between the 
Greeks and the Romans, for the Greeks were altogether a 
nation of artists, and the Romans a practical people. Among 
the latter the fine arts were introduced as a corrupting article 
of luxury, both betokening and accelerating the degeneracy 
of the times. They carried this luxury so far with respect to 
the theatre itself, that the perfection in essentials was sacri- 
ficed to the accessories of embellishment. Even among the 
Greeks dramatic talent was far from universal. The theatre 
was invented in Athens, and in Athens alone was it brought 
to perfection. The Doric dramas of Epicharmus form only a 
slight exception to the truth of this remark. All the great 
creative dramatists of the Greeks^ were born in Attica, and 
formed their style in Athens. Wid^ly^^^the Grecian race 
was spread, successfully as everywhere almost it cultivated 
the fine arts, yet beyond the bounds of Attica it was content 



THE stage: SPAIN POUTUGAL ITALY— GERMANY. 35 

to admire, without venturing to rival, the productions of the 
Athenian stage. 

Equally remarkable is the difference in this respect be- 
tween the Spaniards and their neighbours the Portuguese, 
though related to them both by descent and by language. 
The Spaniards possess a dramatic literature of inexhaustible 
wealth; in fertility their dramatists resemble the Greeks, 
among whom more than a hundred pieces can frequently be 
assigned by name to a single author. Whatever judgment 
may be pronounced on them in other respects, the praise of 
invention has never yet been denied to them ; their claim to 
this has in fact been but too well established, since Italian, 
French, and English writers have all availed themselves of 
the ingenious inventions of the Spaniards, and often without 
acknowledging the source from which they derived them. 
The Portuguese, on the other hand, while in the other 
branches of poetry they rival the Spaniards, have in this 
department accomplished hardly anything, and have never 
even possessed a national theatre ; visited from time to time 
by strolling players from Spain, they chose rather to listen 
to a foreign dialect, which, without previous study, they could 
not perfectly understand, than to invent, or even to translate 
and imitate, for themselves. 

Of the many talents for art and literature displayed by 
the Italians, the dramatic is by no means pre-eminent, and 
this defect they seem to have inherited from the Romans, in 
the same manner as their great talent for mimicry and buf- 
foonery goes back to the most ancient times. The extempo- 
rary compositions called Fahulce Atellance, the only original 
and national form of the Roman drama, in respect of plan, 
were not perhaps more perfect than the so-called Commedia 
delV Arte^ in which, the parts being fixed and invariable, the 
dialogue is extemporised by masked actors. In the ancient 
Saturnalia we have probably the germ of the present carnival, 
which is entirely an Italian invention. The Opera and the 
Ballet were also the invention of the Italians : two species of 
theatrical amusement, in which the dramatic interest is 
entirely subordinate to music and dancing. 

If the German mind has not develoved itself in the drama 
with the same fulness and ease as in other departments of lite- 
rature, this defect is perhaps to be accounted for by the jjecu- 

c 2 



L 




Y 



36 THEATRICAL EFFECT. 

liar character of tlie nation. The Germans are a speculative 
people ; in other words, they wish to discover by reflection 
and meditation, the principle of whatever they engage in. On 
that very account they are not sufficiently practical ; for if / 
we wish to act with skill and determination, we must make/ 
up our minds that we have somehow or other become masters 
of our subject, and not be perpetually recurring to an exami4 
nation of the theory on which it rests ; we must, as it were/ 
have settled down and contented ourselves with a certain 
partial apprehension of the idea. But now in the invention 
and conduct of a drama the practical spirit must prevail : the 
dramatic poet is not allowed to dream away under his inspi- 
ration, he must take the straightest road to his end ; but the 
Germans are only too apt to lose sight of the object in 
the course of their way to it. Besides, in the drama the 
nationality does usually, nay, must show itself in the most 
marked manner, and the national character of the Germans is 
modest and retiring : it loves not to make a noisy display of 
itself; and the noble endeavour to become acquainted with, 
and to appropriate to itself whatever is excellent in others, 
is not seldom accompanied with an undervaluing of its 
own worth. For these reasons the German stage has 
often, in form and matter, been more than duly affected 
by foreign influence. Not indeed that the Germans propose 
to themselves no higher object than the mere passive repeti- 
tion of the Grecian, the French, the Spanish, or the English 
theatre ; but, as it appears to me, they are in search of a more 
perfect form, which, excluding all that is merely local or tem- 
porary, may combine whatever is truly poetical in all these 
theatres. In the matter, however, the German national fea- 
tures ought certainly to predominate. 

After this rapid sketch of what may be called the map of 
dramatic literature, we return to the examination of its fun- 
damental ideas. Since, as we have already shown, visible 
representation is essential to the very form of the drama; a 
dramatic work may always be regarded from a double point 
of view, — how far it is poetical, and how far it is theatrical. 
The two are by no means inseparable. Let not, however, the 
expression poetical be misunderstood : I am not now speaking 
of the versification and the ornaments of language; these, 
when not animated by some higher excellence, are the least 



AUTHORS AND PLAYERS: THEIR SELF-LOVE. 37 

effective on the stage ; but I speak of the poetry in the spirit 
and design of a piece; and this may exist in as high a degree 
when the drama is written in prose as in verse. What is it, 
then, that makes a drama poetical ? The very same, assur- 
edly, that makes other works so. It must in the first 
place be a connected whole, complete and satisfactory v/ithin 
itself. But this is merely the negative definition of a v/crk 
of art, by which it is distinguished from the j)heuomena of 
nature, which run into each other, and do not possess in them- 
selves a complete and independent existence. To be poetical 
it is necessary that a composition should be a mirror of ideas, 
that is, thoughts and feelings which in their character are 
necessary and eternally true, and soar above this earthly life, 
and also that it should exhibit them embodied before us. 
What the ideas are, which in this view are essential to 
the different departments of the drama, will hereafter be the 
subject of our investigation. We shall also, on the other hand, 
show that without them a drama becomes altogether prosaic 
and empirical, that is to say, patched together by the under- 
standing out of the observations it has gathered from literal 
reality. 

But how does a dramatic work become theatrical, or fitted 
to appear with advantage on the stage ? In single instances 
it is often difficult to determine whether a work possesses 
such a property or not. It is indeed frequently the subject of 
great controversy, especially when the self-love of authors and 
actors comes into collision ; each shifts the blame of failure 
on the other, and those who advoca^te the cause of the author 
appeal to an imaginary perfection of the histrionic art, and 
complain of the insuificiency of the existing means for its 
realization. But in general the answer to this question is by 
no means so difficult. The object proposed is to produce an 
impression on an assembled multitude, to rivet their attention, 
and to excite their interest and sympathy. In this respect the 
poet's occupation coincides with that of the orator. How then 
does the latter attain his end 1 By perspicuity, rapidity, and 
energy. Whatever exceeds the ordinary measure of patience 
or comprehension he must diligently avoid. Moreover, when a 
number of men are assembled together, they mutually distract 
each other's attention whenever their eyes and ears are not 
drawn to a common object without and beyond themselves. 



38 ART OF THE DRAMATIC POET. 



■ 



Hence tlie dramatic poet, as well as the orator, must from 
the very commencement, by strong impressions, transport his 
hearers out of themselves, and, as it were, take bodily pos- 
session of their attention. There is a species of poetry which 
gently stirs a mind attuned to solitary contemplation, as soft 
breezes elicit melody from the iEolian harp. However excel- 
lent this poetry may be in itself, without some other accom- 
paniments its tones would be lost on the stage. The melting 
harmonica is not calculated to regul?.te the march of an army, 
and kindle its military enthusiasm. For this we must have 
piercing instruments, but above all a strongly-marked rhythm, 
to quicken the pulsation and give a more rapid movement to 
the animal spirits. The grand repuisite in a drama is to make 
this rhythm perceptible in the onward progress of the action. 
When this has once been effected, the poet may all the sooner 
halt in his rapid career, and indulge the bent of his own 
genius. There are points, when the most elaborate and polished 
style, the most enthusiastic lyrics, the most profound thoughts 
and remote allusions, the smartest coruscations of wit, and the 
most dazzling flights of a sportive or ethereal fancy, are all in 
their place, and when the willing audience, even those who 
cannot entirely comprehend them, follow the whole with 
a greedy ear, like music in unison with their feelings. Here 
the poet's great art lies in availing himself of the effect of 
contrasts, which enable him at one time to produce calm 
repose, profound contemplation, and even the self- abandoned 
indifference of exhaustion, or at another, the most tumultuous 
emotions, the most violent storm of the passions. With respect 
to theatrical fitness, however, it must not be forgotten that 
much must always depend on the capacities and humours of 
the audience, and, consequently, on the national character in 
general, and the particular degree of mental culture. Of all 
kinds of poetry the dramatic is, in a certain sense, the most 
secular ; for, issuing from the stillness of an inspired mind, it 
yet fears not to exhibit itself in the midst of the noise and 
tumult of social life. The dramatic poet is, more than any 
other, obliged to court external favour and loud applause. 
But of course it is only in appearance that he thus lowers 
himself to his hearers ; while, in reality, he is elevating them 
to himself. 

In thus producing an impression on an assembled multitude 



DRAMATIC INSPIRATION EFFECT. 39 

the following circumstance deserves to be weighed, in order 
to ascertain the whole amount of its importance. Inordinary 
intercourse men exhibit only the outward man to each other. 
They are withheld by mistrust or indifference from allowing 
others to look into what passes within them; and to speak 
with any thing like emotion or agitation of that which is 
nearest our heart is considered unsuitable to the tone of 
polished society. The orator and the dramatist find means 
to break through these barriers of conventional reserve. 
While they transport their hearers into such lively emo- 
tions that the outward signs thereof break forth involun- 
tarily, every man perceives those around him to be affected 
in the same manner and degree, and those who before were 
strangers to one another, become in a moment intimately 
acquainted. The tears which the dramatist or the orator 
compels them to shed for calumniated innocence or dying 
heroism, make friends and brothers of them all. Almost 
inconceivable is the power of a visible communion of numbers 
to give intensity to those feelings of the heart which usually 
retire into privacy, or only open themselves to the con- 
fidence of friendship. The faith in the validity of such 
emotions becomes irrefragable from its diffusion; we feel 
ourselves strong among so many associates, and all hearts 
and minds flow together in one great and irresistible stream. 
On this very account the privilege of influencing an assem- 
bled crowd is exposed to most dangerous abuses. As one 
may disinterestedly animate them, for the noblest and best 
of purposes, so another may entangle them in the deceit- 
ful meshes of sophistry, and dazzle them by the glare of a 
false magnanimity, whose vainglorious crimes may be painted 
as virtues and even as sacrifices. Beneath the delightful 
charms of oratory and poetry, the poison steals imperceptibly 
into ear and heart. Above all others must the comic poet 
(seeing that his very occupation keeps him always on the 
slippery brink of this precipice,) take heed, lest he afford an 
opportunity for the lower and baser parts of human nature 
to display themselves without restraint. When the sense of 
shame which ordinarily keeps these baser propensities within 
the bounds of decency, is once weakened by the sight of others' 
participation in them, our inherent sympathy with what is 
vile will soon break out into the most unbridled licentiousness. 



40 SPIRIT AND GENERAL IMPRESSION OF A DRAMA. 



^ 



The powerful nature of such an engine for either good or 
had purposes has in ali times justly drawn the attention of 
the legislature to the drama. Many regulations have been 
devised hy different governments^ to render it subservient to 
their views and to guard against its abuse. The great diffi- 
culty is to combine such a degree of freedom as is necessary for 
the production of works of excellence, with the precautions 
demanded by the customs and institutions of the different states. 
In Athens the theatre enjoyed up to its maturity, under the pa- 
tronage of religion, almost unlimited freedom, and the public 
nioralitypreserved it for a time from degeneracy. The comedies 
of Aristophanes, which with our views and habits appear to us 
so intolerably licentious, and in whicli the senate and the people 
itself are unmercifully turned to ridicule, were the seal of 
Athenian freedom. To meet this abuse, Plato, who lived in the 
very same Athens, and either witnessed or foresaw the decline 
of art, proposed the entire banishment of dramatic poets from 
his ideal republic. Few states, however, have conceived it 
necessary to subscribe to this severe sentence of condemnation; 
but few also have thought proper to leave the theatre to 
itself without any superintendence. In many Christian coun- 
tries the dramatic art has been honoured by being made sub- 
servient to religion, in the popular treatment and exhibition 
of religious subjects ; and in Spain more especially compe- 
tition in this department has given birth to many works which 
neither devotion nor poetry will disown. In other states and 
Under other circumstances this has been thought both objec- 
tionable and inexpedient. Wherever, however, the subse- 
quent responsibility of the poet and actor has been thought 
insufficient, and it has been deemed advisable to submit every 
piece before its appearance on the stage to a previous censor- 
ship, it has been generally found to fail in the very point 
which is of the greatest importance : namely, the spirit and 
general impression of a play. From the nature of the dra- 
matic art, the poet must put into the mouths of his characters 
much of which he does not himself approve, while with respect 
to his own sentiments he claims to be judged by the spirit and 
connexion of the whole. It may again happen that a piece is 
perfectly inoffensive in its single speeches, and defies all cen- 
sorship, while as a whole it is calculated to produce the 
most pernicious effect. We have in our own times seen but 



CHARMS OF THE DRAMA. 41 

too many plays favourably received throughout Europe, over- 
flowing with ebullitions of good-heartedness and traits of mag- 
nanimity, and in which, notwithstanding, a keener eye cannot 
fail to detect the hidden purpose of the writer to sap the 
foundations of moral principle, and the veneration for what- 
ever ought to be held sacred by man; while all this senti- 
mentality is only to bribe to his purpose the effeminate soft- 
heartedness of his contemporaries*. On the other hand, if 
any person were to undertake the moral vindication of poor 
Aristophanes, who has such a bad name, and whose licentious- 
ness in particular passages, is to our ideas quite intolerable, 
he will find good grounds for his defence in the general object 
of his pieces, in which he at least displays the sentiments of a 
patriotic citizen. 

The purport of these observations is to evince the import- 
ance of the subject we are considering. The theatre, where 
many arts are combined to produce a magical effect ; where 
the most lofty and profound poetry has for its interpreter the 
most finished action, which is at once eloquence and an ani- 
mated picture; while architecture contributes her splendid 
decorations, and painting her perspective illusions, and the 
aid of music is called in to attune the mind, or to heighten by 
its strains the emotions which already agitate it ; the theatre, 
in short, where the whole of the social and artistic enlighten- 
ment, which a nation possesses, the fruit of many centuries 
of continued exertion, are brought into play within the repre- 
sentation of a few short hours, has an extraordinary charm 
for every age, sex, and rank, and has ever been the favourite 
amusement of every cultivated people. Here, princes, states- 
men, and generals, behold the great events of past times, 
similar to those in which they themselves are called upon to 
act, laid open in their inmost springs and motives ; here, too, 
the philosopher finds subject for profoundest reflection on the 
nature and constitution of man ; with curious eye the artist 
follows the groups which pass rapidly before him, and 
from them impresses on his fancy the germ of many a future 
picture ; the susceptible youth opens his heart to every ele- 
vating feeling; age becomes young again in recollection; 
even childhood sits with anxious expectation before the gaudy 

The author it is supposed alludes to Kotzebue. — Trans. 



42 CHARMS OF THE DRAMA. 



n 



curtain, wtich is soon to be drawn up with ts rustling 
sound, and to display to it so many unknown wonders : all 
alike are diverted, all exhilarated, and all feel themselves for 
a time raised above the daily cares, the troubles, and the 
sorrows of life. As the drama, with the arts which are sub- 
servient to it, may, from neglect and the mutual contempt of 
artists and the public, so far degenerate, as to become nothing 
better than a trivial and stupid amusement, and even a 
downright waste of time, we conceive that we are attempting 
something more than a passing entertainment, if we propose 
to enter on a consideration of the works produced by the 
most distinguished nations in their most brilliant periods, and 
to institute an inquiry into the means of ennobling and per- 
fecting so important an art. 



PRINCIPAL SPECIES OF THE DRAMA. 43 



LECTURE III. 

Essence of Tragedy and Comedy — Earnestness and Sport — How far it 
is possible to become acquainted with the Ancients without knowing 
Original Languages — Winkelmann. 

The importance of our subject is, I think, fully proved. Let 
us now enter upon a brief consideration of tbe two kinds into 
wbicb all dramatic poetry is divided, the tragic and comic, 
and examine the meaning and import of each. 

The three principal kinds of poetry in general are the epic, 
the lyric, and the dramatic. All the other subordinate 
species are either derived from these, or formed by com- 
bination from them. If we would consider these three leading 
kinds in their purity, we must go back to the forms in which 
they appeared among the Greeks. For the theory of poeti- 
cal art is most conveniently illustrated by the history of Gre- 
cian poetry; for the latter is well entitled to the appellation 
of systematical, since it furnishes for every independent idea 
derived from experience the most distinct and precise manifes- 
tation. 

It is singular that epic and lyric poetry admit not of any 
such precise division into two opposite species, as the dramatic 
does. The ludicrous epopee has, it is true, been styled a 
peculiar species, but it is only an accidental variety, a mere 
parody of the epos, and consists in applying its solemn staid- 
ness of development, which seems only suitable to great objects, 
to trifling and insignificant events. In lyric poetry there are 
only intervals and gradations between the song, the ode, and 
the elegy, but no proper contrast. 

The spirit of epic poetry, as we recognise it in its father, 
Homer, is clear self-possession. The epos is the calm quiet 
representation of an action in progress. The poet relates 
joyful as well as mournful events, but he relates them with 
equanimity, and considers them as already past, aud at a 
certain remoteness from our minds. 

The lyric poem is the musical expression of mental emo- 




44 ESSENCE OF TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 

tions by language. The essence of musical feeling consists 
in this, that we endeavour with complacency to dwell on, and 
even to perpetuate in our souls, a joyful or painful emotion. 
The feeling must consequently be already so far mitigated 
as not to impel us by the desire of its pleasure or the dread 
of its pain, to tear ourselves from it, but such as to allow 
us, unconcerned at the fluctuations of feeling which time 
produces, to dwell upon and be absorbed in a single moment 
of existence. 

The dramatic poet, as well as the epic, represents external 
events, but he represents them as real and present. In common 
with the lyric poet he also claims our mental participation, but 
not in the same calm composedness ; the feelingof joy and sor- 
row which the dramatist excites is more immediate and vehe- 
ment. He calls forth all the emotions which the sight of similar 
deeds and fortunes of living men would elicit, and it is only 
by the total sum of the impression which he produces that he 
nitimatelyresolves these conflicting emotions into a harmonious 
tone of feeling. As he stands in such close proximity to real 
life, and endeavours to endue his own imaginary creations with 
vitality, the equanimity of the epic poet would in him be in- 
difference; he must decidedly take pa.rt with one or other of 
the leading views of human life, and constrain his audience 
also to participate in the same feeling. 

To employ simpler and more intelligible language: the 
tragic and comic bear the same relation to one another as 
earnest and S20ort. Every man, from his own experience, is 
acquainted with both these states of mind ; but to determine 
their essence and their source would demand deep philosophi- 
cal investigation. Both, indeed, bear the stamp of our com- 
mon nature; but earnestness belongs more to its moral, and 
mirth to its animal part. The creatures destitute of reason 
are incapable either of earnest or of sport. Animals seem 
indeed at times to labour as if they were earnestly intent upon 
some aim, and as if they made the present moment subordinate 
to the future ; at other times they seem to sport, that is, they 
give themselves up without object or purpose to the pleasure 
of existence: but they do not possess consciousness, which alone 
can entitle these two conditions to the names of earnest and 
sport. Man alone, of all the animals with which we are 
acquainted, is capable of looking back towards the past, and 



TRAGIC POETRY ITS ORIGIN. 45 

forward into futurity; and he has to purchase the enjoyment 
of this noble privilege at a dear rate. Earnestness, in the 
most extensive signification, is the direction of our mental 
powers to some aim. But as soon as we begin to call ourselves 
to account for our actions, reason compels us to fix this aim 
higher and higher, till we come at last to the highest end of 
our existence : and here that longing for the infinite which is 
inherent in our being, is baflled by the limits of our finite exist- 
ence. All that we do, all that we eJBTect, is vain and perish- 
able j death stands everywhere in the back ground, and to it 
every well or ill-spent moment brings us nearer and closer ; 
and even when a man has been so singularly fortunate as to 
reach the utmost term of life without any grievous calamity, 
the inevitable doom still awaits him to leave or to be left by all 
that is most dear to him on earth. There is no bond of love 
without a separation, no enjoyment without the grief of losing 
it. When, however, we contemplate the relations of our ex- 
istence to the extreme limit of possibilities : when we reflect 
on its entire dependence on a chain of causes and efl^ects, 
stretching beyond our ken : when we consider how weak and 
helpless, and doomed to struggle against the enormous powers 
of nature, and conflicting appetites, we are cast on the shores 
of an unknown world, as it were, shipwrecked at our very 
birth ; how we are subject to all kinds of errors and deceptions, 
any one of which may be our ruin ; that in our passions we 
cherish an enemy in our bosoms ; how every moment demands 
from us, in the name of the most sacred duties, the sacrifice of 
our dearest inclinations, and how at one blow we may be robbed 
of all that we have acquired with much toil and diSiculty ; that 
with every accession to our stores, the risk of loss is propor- 
tionately increased, and we are only the more exposed to the 
malice of hostile fortune: when we think upon ail this, every 
heart which is not dead to feeling must be overpowered by an 
inexpressible melancholy, for which there is no other counter- 
poise than the consciousness of a vocation transcending the 
limits of this earthly life. This is the tragic tone of mind; 
and when the thought of the possible issues out of the mind as 
a living reality, when this tone pervades and animates a visible 
representation of the most striking instances of violent revolu- 
tions in a man's fortunes, either prostrating his mental energies 
or calling forth the most heroic endurance — then the result is 




46 THE COMIC tone: sport. 

Tragic Poetry. We tlius see how tliis kind of poetry has its 

foundation in our nature, while to a certain extent we have 
also answered the question, why we are fond of such mourn- 
ful representations, and even find something consoliug and 
elevating in them 1 This tone of mind we have described is 
inseparable from strong feeling ; and although poetry cannot 
remove these internal dissonances, she must at least endeavour 
to efi'ect an ideal reconciliation of them. 

As earnestness, in the highest degree, is the essence of 
tragic representation; so is sport of the comic. The disposi- 
tion to mirth is a forgetfulness of all gloomy considerations in 
the pleasant feeling of present happiness. We are then in- 
clined to view every thing in a sportive light, and to allow 
nothing to disturb or ruffle our minds. The imperfections 
and the irregularities of men are no longer an object of dislike 
and compassion, but serve, by their strange inconsistencies, to 
entertain the understanding and to amuse the fancy. The 
comic poet must therefore carefully abstain from whatever is 
calculated to excite moral indignation at the conduct, or sym- 
pathy with the situations of his personages, because this would 
inevitably bring us back again into earnestness. lie must paint 
their irregularities as springing out of the predominance of the 
animal part of their nature, and the incidents which befal 
them as merely ludicrous distresses, which will be attended 
with no fatal consequences. This is uniformly what takes 
place in what we call Comedy, in which, however, there is 
still a mixture of seriousness, as I shall show in the sequel. 
The oldest comedy of the Greeks was, however, entirely 
sportive, and in that respect formed the most complete con- 
trast to their tragedy. Not only were the characters and 
situations of individuals worked up into a comic picture of 
real life, but the whole frame of society, the constitution, 
nature, and the gods, were all fantastically painted in the most 
ridiculous and laughable colours. 

When we have formed in this manner a pure idea of the 
tragic and comic, as exhibited to us in Grecian examples, we 
shall then be enabled to analyze the various corruptions of 
both, which the moderns have invented, to discriminate their 
incongruous additions, and to separate their several ingre- 
dients. 

In the history of poetry and the fine arts among the Greeks, 



STUDY OF THE GRECIAN LANGUAGE. 47 

their development was subject to an invariable law. Every- 
thing heterogeneous was first excluded, and then all homo- 
geneous elements were combined, and each being perfected in 
itself, at last elevated into an independent and harmonious 
unity. Hence with them each species is confined within its 
natural boundaries, and the difi'erent styles distinctly marked. 
In beginning, therefore, with the history of the Grecian art 
and poetry, we are not merely observing the order of time, 
but also the order of ideas. 

In the case of the majority of my hearers, I can hardly 
presume upon a direct acquaintance with the Greeks, derived 
from the study of their poetical works in the original lan- 
guage. Translations in prose, or even in verse, in which 
they are but dressed up again in the modern taste, can afiford 
no true idea of the Grecian drama. True and faithful trans- 
lations, which endeavour in expression and versification to 
rise to the height of the original, have as yet been attempted 
only in Germany. But although our language is extremely 
flexible, and in many respects resembling the Greek, it is after 
all a battle with unequal weapons ; and stifi*ness and harshness 
not unfrequently take the place of the easy sweetness of the 
Greek. But we are even far from having yet done all that can 
perhaps be accomplished : I know of no translation of a Greek 
tragedian deserving of unqualified pTaise. But even suppos- 
ing the translation as perfect as possible, and deviating very 
slightly from the original, the reader who is unacquainted 
with the other works of the Greeks, will be perpetually dis- 
turbed by the foreign nature of the subject, by national pecu- 
liarities and numerous allusions (which cannot be understood 
without some scholarship), and thus unable to comprehend 
particular parts, he will be prevented from forming a clear 
idea of the whole. So long as we have to struggle with diffi- 
culties it is impossible to have any true enjoyment of a work of » 
art. To feel the ancients as we ought, we must have become 1 
in some degree one of themselves, and breathed as it were 
the Grecian air. 

What is the best means of becoming imbued with the spirit 
of the Greeks, without a knowledge of their language ? I 
answer without hesitation, — the study of the antique; and if 
this is not always possible through the originals, yet, by 
means of casts, it is to a certain extent within the power of 



48 TRANSLATIONS — STUDY OF THE ANTIQUE. 

every man. These models of tlie liuman form require no 
interpretation ; their elevated character is imperishable, and 
will always be recognized through all vicissitudes of time, 
and in every region under heaven, wherever there exists a 
noble race of men akin to the Grecian (as the European un- 
doubtedly is), and wherever the unkindness of nature has 
not degraded the human features too much below the pure 
standard, and, by habituating them to their own deformity, 
rendered them insensible to genuine corporeal beauty. Re- 
specting the inimitable perfection of the antique in its few 
remains of a first-rate character, there is but one voice 
throughout the whole of civilized Europe ; p.nd if ever their 
merit was called in question, it was in times when the modern 
arts of design had sunk to the lowest depths of mannerism. 
Not only all intelligent artists, but all men of any degree of 
taste, bow with enthusiastic adoration before the masterly 
productions of ancient sculpture. 

The best guide to conduct us to this sanctuary of the beau- 
tiful, with deep and thoughtful contemplation, is the History 
of Art by our imm.ortal Winkelmann. In the description 
of particular works it no doubt leaves much to be desired ; 
nay, it even abounds in grave errors, but no man has so deeply 
penetrated into the innermost spirit of Grecian art. Winkel- 
mann transformed himself completely into an ancient, and 
seemingly lived in his own century, unmoved by its spirit 
and influences. 

The immedip.te subject of his work is the plastic arts, but it 
contains al>o many important hints concerning other branches 
of Grecian civilisation, and is very useful as a preparation for 
the understanding of their poetry, and especially their dramatic 
poetr3\ As the latter was designed for visible representation 
before spectators, whose eye must have been as difficult to 
please on the stage as elsewhere, we have no better means of 
feeling the whole dignity of their tragic exhibitions, and of 
giviug it a sort of theatrical animation, than to keep these 
forms of gods and heroes ever present to our fancy. The 
assertion may appear somewhat strange at present, but I 
hope in the sequel to demonstrate its justice : it is only before 
the groupes of Niobe or Laocoon that we first enter into the 
spirit of the tragedies of Sophocles. 

We are yet in want of a work in which the ent're poetic, 



FRENCH CRITICISM. 4.9 

artistic, scientific; and social culture of the Greeks should be 
painted as one grand and harmonious whole, as a true work of 
nature, prevaded by the most wondrous symmetry and propor- 
tion of the parts, and traced through its connected deA'-elopment 
in the same spirit which Winkelmann has executed in the part 
which he attempted. An attempt has indeed been made in 
a popular work, which is in everybody's hands, I mean the 
Travels of the Younger Anacharsis. Tliis book is valuable for 
its learning, and may be very useful in difiusing a knowledge 
of antiquities ; but, without censuring the error of the dress 
in which it is exhibited, it betrays more good-will to do 
justice to the Greeks, than ability to enter deeply into their 
spirit. In this respect the work is in many points superficial, 
and even disfigured with modern views. It is not the travels ^ 
of a young Scythian, but of an old Parisian. ^ 

The superior excellence of the Greeks in the fine arts, as I 
have already said, is the most universally acknowledged. 
An enthusiasm for their literature is in a great measure con- 
fined to the English and Germans, among whom also the 
study of the Grecian language is the most zealously prosecuted. 
It is singular that the French critics of all others, they 
who so zealously acknowledge the remains of the theoretical 
writings of the ancients on literature, Aristotle, Horace, 
Quinctilian, &c., as infallible standards of taste, should yet 
distinguish themselves by the contemptuous and irreverent 
manner in which they speak of their poetical compositions, 
and especially of their dramatic literature. Look, for instance, 
into a book very much read, — La Harpe's Cours de Litterature. 
It contains many acute remarks on the French Theatre; but 
whoever should think to learn the Greeks from it must 
be very ill advised : the author was as deficient in a solid 
knowledge of their literature as in a sense for appreciating it. 
Voltaire, also, often speaks most unwarrantably on this sub- 
ject : he elevates or lowers them at the suggestions of his 
caprice, or according to the purpose of the moment to pro- 
duce such or such an efi'ect on the mind of the public. 
I remember too to have read a cursory critique of Metas- 
tasio's on the Greek tragedians, in which he treats them like 
so many school-boys. Eacine is much more modest, and ■ 
cannot be in any manner charged with this sort of pre- 
sumption : even because he was the best acquainted of all of 

D 



b^ 




50 THE GRECIAN DRAMA. 

them witli tlie Greeks. It is easy to see into the motives of 
these hostile critics. Their uational and personal vanity 
has much to do with the matter ; conceiting themselves that 
they have far surpassed the ancients, they venture to commit 
such observations to the public, knoAving that the works of 
the ancient poets have come down to us in a dead language, 
accessible only to the learned, without the animating accom- 
paniment of recitation, music, ideal and truly plastic imper- 
sonation, and scenic pomp ; all which, in every respect worthy 
of the poetry, was on the Athenian stage combined in such 
wonderful harmony, that if only it could be represented to 
our eye and ear, it would at once strike dumb the whole herd 
of these noisy and interested critics. The ancient statues 
require no commentary; they speak for themselves, and 
everything like competition on the part of a modern artist 
would be regarded as ridiculous pretension. In respect of 
the theatre, they lay great stress on the infancy of the art; 
and because these poets lived two thousand years before us, 
they conclude that we must have made great progress since. 
In this way poor ^schylus especially is got rid of. But in 
sober truth, if this was the infancy of dramatic art, it was 
the infancy of a Hercules, who strangled serpents in his 
cradle. 

I have already expressed my opinion on that blind par- 
tiality for the ancients, which regards their excellence as a 
frigid faultlessness, and which exhibits them as models, in 
such a way as to j^ut a stop to everything like improvement, 
and reduce us to abandon the exercise of art as altogether 
fruitless. I, for my part, am disposed to believe that poetry, 
as the fervid expression of our whole being, must assume new 
and peculiar forms in different ages. Nevertheless, I cherish 
an enthusiastic veneration for the Greeks, as a people endowed, 
by the peculiar favour of Nature, with the most perfect genius 
for art; in the consciousness of which, they gave to all the 
nations with which they were acquainted, compared with 
themselves, the appellation of barbarians, — an appellation in 
the use of which they were in some degree justified. I would 
jnot wish to imitate certain travellers, who, on returning from 
a country which their readers cannot easily visit, give such 
exaggerated accounts of it, and relate so many marvels, as to 
hazard their own character for veracity. I shall rather en- 



TRAGEDY — uLD AND NEAV COMEDY. 51 

deavour to characterize them as they appear to me after 
sedulous and repeated study, without concealing their defects, 
and to bring a living picture of the Grecian stage before the 
eyes of my hearers. 

We shall treat first of the Tragedy of the Greeks, then of 
their Old Comedy, and lastly of the New Comedy which arose 
out of it. 

The same theatrical accompaniments were common to all 
the three kinds. We must, therefore, give a short preliminary 
view of the theatre, its architecture and decorations, that we 
may have a distinct idea of their representation. 

The histrionic art of the ancients had also many peculiar^ 
ities: the use of masks, for example, although these were 
quite different in tragedy and comedy; in the former, ideal, 
and in the latter, at least in the Old Comedy, somewhat cari- 
catured. 

In tragedy, we shall first consider what constituted its most 
distinctive peculiarity among the ancients : the ideality of the 
representation, the prevailing idea of destiny, and the chorus; 
and we shall lastly treat of their mythology, as the materials 
of tragic poetry. We shall then proceed to characterize, in 
the three tragedians of whom alone entire works still remain^ 
the difi'erent styles — that is, the necessary epochs in the his- 
tory of the tragic art. 



d2 



STRUCTURE OF THE GRECIAN STAGE. 



LECTURE IV. 

Stnicture of the Stage among the Greeks — Their Acting — Use of Masks — 
False comparison of Ancient Tragedy to the Opera — Tragical Lyric 
Poetry. 

When we hear the word ^Hheatre," we naturally think of 
what with us bears the same name ; and yet nothing can be 
more different from our theatre, in its entire structure, than, 
that of the Greeks. If in reading the Grecian pieces we 
associate our own stage with them, the light in which we 
shall view them must be false in every respect. 

The leading authority on this subject, and one, too, whose 
statements are mathematically accurate, is Vitruvius, who 
also distinctly points out the great difference between the 
Greek and Roman theatres. But these and similar passages 
of the ancient writers have been most incorrectly interpreted 
by architects unacquainted with the ancient dramatists*; and 
philologists, in their turn, from ignorance of architecture, 
have also egregiously erred. The ancient dramatists are 
still, therefore, greatly in want of that illustration which a 
right understanding of their scenic arrangements is calculated 
to throw upon them. In many tragedies I think that I have 
a tolerably clear notion of the matter ; but others, again, pre- 
sent difficulties which are not easily solved. But it is in 
figuring the representation of Aristophanes' comedies that I 
find myself most at a loss : the ingenious poet must have 
brought his wonderful inventions before the eyes of his audi- 
ence in a manner equally bold and astonishing. Even Bar- 
thelemy's description of the Grecian stage is not a little con- 
fused, and his subjoined plan extremely incorrect ; where he 
attempts to describe the acting of a play, the Antigone or the 
Ajax, for instance, he goes altogether wrong. For this 

* We have a remarkable instance of this in the pretended ancient 
theatre of Palladio, at Vicenza, Herculaneum, it is true, had not then 
been discovered; and it is difficult to understand the ruins of the ancient 
theatre without having seen a complete one. 



I 



THEATRES OF THE GREEKS. 53 

reason the following explanation will appear the less super- 
fluous*. 

The theatres of the Greeks were quite open above, and 
their dramas were always acted in day, and beneath the 
canopy of heaven. The Romans, indeed, at an after period, 
may have screened the audience, by an awning, from the sun ; 
but luxury was scarcely ever carried so far by the Greeks. Such 
a state of things appears very uncomfortable to us ; but the 
Greeks had nothing of effeminacy about them; and we must 
not forget, too, the mildness of their climate. When a storm 
or a shower came on, the play was of course interrupted, 
and the spectators sought shelter in the lofty colonnade 
which ran behind their seats ; but they were willing rather 
to put up with such occasional inconveniences, than, by 
shutting themselves up in a close and crowded house, en- 
tirely to forfeit the sunny brightness of a religious solem- 
nity — for such, in fact, their plays weref. To have covered 
in the scene itself, and imprisoned gods and heroes in a 
dark and gloomy apartment, artificially lighted up, would 
have appeared still more ridiculous to them. An action 
which so gloriously attested their affinity with heaven, could 
fitly be exhibited only beneath the free heaven, and, as it 
were, under the very eyes of the gods, for Avhom, according to 
Seneca, the sight of a brave man struggling with adversity is 
a suitable spectacle. With respect to the supposed inconve- 
nience, which, according to the assertion of many modern 
critics, hence accrued, compelling the poets always to lay the 
scene of their pieces out of doors, and consequently often 
forcing them to violate probability, it was very little felt by 
Tragedy and the Older Comedy. The Greeks, like many 
southern nations of the present day, lived much more in the 

* I am partly indebted for them to the elucidations of a learned archi- 
tect, M, GeneUi, of Berlin, author of the ingenious Letters on Vitruvius. 
We have compared several Greek tragedies with our interpretation of 
Vitruvius's description, and endeavoured to figure to ourselves the manner 
in which they were represented; and I afterwards found our ideas con- 
firmed by an examination of the theatre of Herculaneum, and the two very 
small ones at Pompeii. 

t They carefully made choice of a beautiful situation. The theatre at 
Tauromenium, at present Taormino, in Sicily, of which the ruins are still 
■visible, was, according to Hunter's description, situated in such a manner 
that the audience had a view of Etna over the back-ground of the theatre. 



L 



54 THEATRES OF THE ANCIENTS. 



1 



open air than we do, and transacted many things in public 
places which with us usually take place within doors. 
Besides, the theatre did not represent the street, but a front 
area belonging to the house, where the altar stood on which 
sacrifices were offered to the household gods. Here, there- 
fore, the women, notwithstanding the retired life they led 
among the Greeks, even those who were unmarried, might 
appear without any impropriety. Neither was it impossible 
for them, if necessary, to give a view of the interior of the 
house ; and this was effected, as we shall presently see, by 
means of the Encydema. 

But the principal ground of this practice was that pub- 
licity which, according to the republican notion of the Greeks, 
was essential to all grave and important transactions. This 
was signified by the presence of the chorus, whose presence 
during many secret transactions has been judged of according 
to rules of propriety inapplicable to the country, and so mofet 
undeservedly censured. 

The theatres of the ancients were, in comparison with the 
small scale of ours, of colossal magnitude, partly for the sake 
of containing the whole of the people, with the concourse of 
strangers who flocked to the festivals, and partly to corres- 
pond with the majesty of the dramas represented in them, 
which required to be seen at a respectful distance. The seats 
of the spectators were formed by ascending steps which rose 
round the semicircle of the orchestra, (called by us the pit,) 
so that all could see with equal convenience. The diminution 
of effect by distance was counteracted to the eye and ear by 
artificial contrivances consisting in the employment of masks, 
and of an apparatus for increasing the loudness of the voice, 
and of the cothurnus to give additional stature. Yitruvius 
speaks also of vehicles of sound, distributed throughout the 
building; but commentators are much at variance with 
respect to their nature. In general it may be assumed, that 
the theatres of the ancients were constructed on excellent 
acoustic principles. 

Even the lowest tier of the amphitheatre was raised con- 
siderably above the orchestra, and opposite to it was the 
stage, at an equal degree of elevation. The hollow semicircle 
of the orchestra was unoccupied by spectators, and was designed 
for another purpose. However, it was otherwise with the 



SCENIC DECORATIONS. 55 

Romans, though indeed the arrangement of their theatres 
does not at present concern us. 

The stage consisted of a strip which stretched from one 
end of the building to the other, and of which the depth bore 
little proportion to this breadth. This was called the logeum, 
in Latin pulpitum, and the middle of it was the usual place 
for the persons who spoke. Behind this middle part, the 
scene went inwards in a quadrangular form, with less depth, 
however, than breadth. The space thus enclosed was called 
the proscenium. The front of the logeum towards the or- 
chestra was ornamented with pilasters and small statues 
between them. The stage, erected on a foundation of stone- 
work, was a wooden platform resting on rafters. The sur- 
rounding appurtenances of the stage, together with the rooms 
required for the machinery, were also of wood. The wall of 
the building, directly opposite to the seats of the spectators, 
was raised to a level with the uppermost tier. 

The scenic decoration was contrived in such a manner, that 
the principal and nearest object covered the background, and 
the prospects of distance were given at the two sides; the 
very reverse of the mode adopted by us. The latter arrange- 
ment had also its rules : on the left, was the town to which 
the palace, temple, or whatever occupied the middle, belonged; 
on the right, the open country, landscape, mountains, sea- 
coast, &c. The side-scenes were composed of triangles which 
turned on a pivot beneath ; and in this manner the change of 
scene was effected. According to an observation on Virgil, 
by Servius, the change of scene was partly produced by 
revolving, and partly by withdrawing. The former applies 
to the lateral decorations, and the latter to the middle of the 
background. The partition in the middle opened, disap- 
peared at both sides, and exhibited to view a new picture. 
But all the parts of the scene were not always changed at 
the same time. In the back or central scene, it is probable, 
that much which with us is only painted was given bodily. 
If this represented a palace or temple, there was usually in 
the proscenium an altar, which in the performance answered 
a number of purposes. 

The decoration was for the most part architectural, but 
occasionally also a painted landscape, as of Caucasus in the 
Prometheus, or in the Fkiloctetes, of the desert island of 




56 SCENIC ARRANGEMENT. 

LemnoS; and the rocks with its cavern. From a passage of 
Plato it is clear, that the Greeks carried the illusions of 
theatrical perspective much farther than, judging from some 
wretched landscapes discovered in Herculaneum, we should 
be disposed to allow. 

In the back wall of the stage there was one main entrance, 
and two side doors. It has been maintained, that from them 
it might be discovered whether an actor played a principal or 
under part, as in the first case he came in by the main 
entrance, but in the second, entered from either of the sides. 
But this should be understood with the proviso, that this 
must have varied according to the nature of the j)iece. As 
the middle scene was generally a palace, in which the prin- 
cipal characters generally of royal descent resided, they 
naturally came on the stage through the great door, while 
the servants dwelt in the wings. But besides these three 
entrances, which were directly opposite to the spectators, 
and were real doors, with appropriate architectural decora- 
tions, there were also four side entrances, to which the 
name of doors cannot properly apply : two, namely, on the 
stage on the right and the left, towards the inner angles of the 
proscenium, and two farther off, in the orchestra, also right 
and left. The latter were intended properly for the chorus, 
but were likewise not unfrequently used by the actors, who 
in such cases ascended to the stage by one or other of the 
double flight of steps which ran from the orchestra to the 
middle of the logeum. The entering from the right or the 
left of itself indicated the place from which the dramatic per- 
sonages must be supposed to come. The situation of these 
entrances serves to explain many passages in the ancient 
dramas, where the persons standing in the middle see some 
one advancing, long before he approaches them. 

Somewhere beneath the seats of the spectators, a flight of 
stairs was constructed, which was called the Charonic, and 
by which, unseen by the audience, the shadows of the de- 
parted, ascended into the orchestra, and thence to the stage. 
The furthermost brink of the logeum must sometimes have 
represented the sea shore. Moreover the G-reeks in general 
skilfully availed themselves even of extra-scenic matters, and 
made them subservient to the stage effect. Thus, I doubt not, 
but that in the Eumenides the spectators were twice addressed 



STAGE MACHINERr. 57 

as an assembled people; first, as the Greeks invited by the 
Pythoness to consult the oracle; and a second time as the 
Athenian multitude, when Pallas, by the herald, commands 
silence during the trial about to commence. So too the 
frequent appeals to heaven were undoubtedly addressed to 
the real heaven; and when Electra on her first appearance 
exclaims: "0 holy light, and thou air co-expansive with 
earth !" she probably turned towards the actual sun ascend- 
ing in the heavens. The whole of this procedure is highly 
deserving of praise ; and though modern critics have censured 
the mixture of reality and imitation, as destructive of thea- 
trical illusion, this only proves that they have misunderstood 
the essence of the illusion which a work pf art aims at pro- 
ducing. If we are to be truly deceived by a picture, that is, 
if we are to believe in the reality of the object which we see, 
we must not perceive its limits, but look at it through an 
opening; the frame at once declares it for a picture. Now 
in stage-scenery we cannot avoid the use of architectural con- 
trivances, productive of the same effect on dramatic repre- 
sentation as frames on pictures. It is consequently much 
better not to attempt to disguise this fact, but leaving this 
kind of illusion for those cases where it can be advan- 
tageously employed, to take it as a permitted licence occa- 
sionally to step out of the limits of mere scenic decoration. 
It was, generally speaking, a principle of the Greeks, with 
respect to stage imitation, either to require a perfect repre- 
sentation, and where this could not be accomplished, to be 
satisfied with merely symbolical allusions. 

The machinery for the descent of gods through the air, or 
the withdrawing of men from the earth, was placed aloft 
behind the walls of the two sides of the scene, and con- 
sequently removed from the sight of the spectators. Even in 
the time of -^schylus, great use was already made of it, as in 
the Prometheus he not only brings Oceanus through the air 
on a grifiin, but also in a winged chariot introduces the whole 
choir of ocean nymphs, at least fifteen in number. There 
were also hollow places beneath the stage into which, when 
necessary, the personages could disappear, and contrivances 
for thunder and lightniug, for the apparent fall or burning of 
a house, &c. 

To the hindmost wall of the scene an upper story could be 



58 THE CHORUSES. 

added; wheneTer, for instance, it was wished to represent a 
tower with a wide prospect, or the like. Behind the great 
middle entrance there was a space for the Exostra, a 
machine of a semicircular form, and covered above, which 
represented the objects contained in it as in a house. This 
was used for grand strokes of theatrical effect, as we may see 
from many pieces. On such occasions the folding-doors of 
the entrance would naturally be open, or the curtain which 
covered it withdrawn. 

A stage curtain, which, we clearly see from a description of 
Ovid, was not dropped, but drawn upwards, is mentioned both 
by Greek and Roman writers, and the Latin appellation, 
aulceum, is even borrowed from the Greeks. I suspect, how- 
ever, that the curtain was not much used at first on the Attic 
stage. In the pieces of iEschylus and Sophocles, the scene is 
evidently empty at the opening as well as the conclusion, and 
seems therefore to have required no preparation which needed 
to be shut out from the view of the spectators. However, in 
many of the pieces of Euripides, and perhaps also in the 
(Edipus Tyrannus, the stage is filled from the very first, and 
presents a standing group which could not well have been 
assembled under the very eyes of the spectators. It must, 
besides, be remembered, that it was only the comparatively 
small proscenium, and not the logeum, which was covered by 
the curtain which disappeared through a narrow opening 
between two of the boards of the flooring, being wound up on 
a roller beneath the stage. 

The entrances of the chorus were beneath in the orchestra, 
in which it generally remained, and in which also it performed 
its solemn dance, moving backwards and forwards during the 
choral songs. In the front of the orchestra, opposite to the 
middle of the scene, there was an elevation with steps, 
resembling an altar, as high as the stage, which was called 
the Tliymele. This was the station of the chorus when it did 
not sing, but merely looked on as an interested spectator of 
the action. At such times the choragus, or leader of the 
chorus, took his station on the top of the tliymele, to see what 
was passing on the stage, and to converse with the characters 
there present. For though the choral song was common to 
the whole, yet when it took part in the dialogue, one usually 
spoke for all the rest ; and hence we may account for the 



USE OF MASKS. 59 

shifting from thou to ye in addressing them. The th3rmele 
was situated in the very centre of the building ; all the mea- 
surements were made from it, and the semicircle of the 
amphitheatre was described round it as the centre. It was, 
therefore, an excellent contrivance to place the chorus, who 
were the ideal representatives of the spectators, in the very 
spot where all the radii converged. 

The tragical imitation of the ancients was altogether ideal 
and rhythmical; and in forming a judgment of it, we must 
always keep this in view. It was ideal, in so far as it aimed 
at the highest grace and dignity; and rhythmical, insomuch as 
the gestures and inflections of voice were more solemnly mea- 
sured than in real life. As the statuary -of the Greeks, setting 
out, with almost scientific strictness, with the most general 
conception, sought to embody it again in various general 
characters which were gradually invested with the charms of 
life, so that the individual was the last thing to which they 
descended ; in like manner in the mimetic art, they began 
with the idea (the delineation of persons with heroical 
grandeur, more than human dignity, and ideal beauty), then 
passed to character, and made passion the last of all ; which, 
in the collision with the requisitions of either of the others, 
was forced to give way. Fidelity of representation was less 
their object than beauty j with us it is exactly the reverse. 
On this principle, the use of masks, which appears astonishing 
to us, was not only justifiable, but absolutely essential ; far 
from considering them as a makeshift, the Greeks would cer- 
tainly, and with justice too, have looked upon it as a make- 
shift to be obliged to allow a player with vulgar, ignoble, 
or strongly marked features, to represent an Apollo or a 
Hercules ; nay, rather they would have deemed it downright 
profanation. How little is it in the power of the most 
finished actor to change the character of his features ! How 
prejudicial must this be to the expression of passion, as all 
passion is tinged more or less strongly by the character. Nor 
is there any need to have recourse to the conjecture that they 
changed the masks in the different scenes, for the purpose of 
exhibiting a greater degree of joy or sorrow. I call it conjec- 
ture, though Barthelemy, in his Anacharsis, considers it a 
settled point. He cites no authorities, and I do not recollect 
any. For the expedient would by no means have been suffi- 



60 PLAY OF THE FEATURES. 

cient, as tlie passions often change in tlie same scene, and this 
has reduced modern critics to suppose, that the masks ex- 
hibited different appearances on the two sides ; and that now 
this, now that side was turned towards the spectators, accord- 
ing to circumstances. Voltaire, in his Essay on the Tragedy 
of the Ancients and IModerns, prefixed to Semiramis, has 
actually gone this length. Amidst a multitude of supposed 
improprieties which he heaps together to confound the admirers 
of ancient tragedy, he urges the following: AiLcune nation 
(that is to say, excepting the Greeks) oie fait paraitre ses 
acteurs sur des especes cCechasses, le visage convert dhin masque, 
qui exprime la doideur d\ui cote et la joie de V autre. After 
a conscientious inquiry into the authorities for an assertion so 
very improbable, and yet so boldly made, I can only find one 
passage in Quinctilian, lib. xi. cap. 3, and an allusion of Pla- 
tonius still more vague. (Vide Aristoph. ed. Kiister. prolegom. 
p. X.) Both passages refer only to the new comedy, and only 
amount to this, that in some characters the eyebrows were 
dissimilar. As to the intention of this, I shall say a word or- 
two hereafter, when I come to consider the new Greek comedy. 
Voltaire, however, is without excuse, as the mention of the 
cothurnus leaves no doubt that he alluded to tragic masks. 
But his error had probably no such learned origin. In most 
cases, it would be a fruitless task to trace the source of his 
mistakes. The whole description of the Greek tragedy, as 
well as that of the cothurnus in particular, is worthy of the 
man whose knowledge of antiquity was such, that in his 
Essay on Tragedy, prefixed to Brutus, he boasts of having 
introduced the Roman Senate on the stage in red mantles. 
No ; the countenance remained from beginning to end the 
very same, as we may see from the ancient masks cut out in 
stone. For the expression of passion, the glances of the eye, 
the motion of the arms and hands, the attitudes, and, lastly, 
the tones of the voice, remained there. Vv^e complain of the 
loss of the play of the features, without reflecting, that at 
such a great distance, its effect w^ould have been altogether 
lost. 

We are not now inquiring whether, without the use of 
masks, it may not be possible to attain a higher degree of 
separate excellence in the mimetic art. This we would very 
willingly allow. Cicero, it is true, speaks of the expression, 



FROM OF THE MASKS. 61 

the softness, and delicacy of the acting of Roscius, in the 
same terms that a modern critic would apply to Garrick or 
Schroder. But I will not lay any stress on the acting of this 
celebrated player, the excellence of which has become pro- 
verbial, because it appears from a passage in Cicero that he 
frequently played without a mask, and that this was preferred 
by his contemporaries. I doubt, however, whether this was ever 
the case among the Greeks. But the same writer relates, that 
actors in general, for the sake of acquiring the most perfect 
purity and flexibility of voice (and not merely the musical 
voice, otherwise the example would not have been applicable 
to the orator), submitted to such a course of uninterrupted 
exercises, as our modern players, even the French, who of all 
follow the strictest training, would consider a most intolerable 
oppression. For the display of dexterity in the mimetic art, 
without the accompaniment of words, was carried by the 
ancients in their pantomimes, to a degree of perfection 
quite unknown to the moderns. In tragedy, however, the 
great object in the art was the due subordination of every 
element ; the whole was to appear animated by one and the 
same spirit, and hence, not merely the poetry, but the musical 
accompaniment, the scenical decoration, and training of the 
actors, all issued from the poet. The player was a mere in- 
strument in his hands, and his merit consisted in the accuracy 
with which he filled his part, and by no means in arbitrary 
bravura, or ostentatious display of his own skill. 

As from the nature of their writing materials, they had not 
a facility of making many copies, the parts were learnt from 
the repeated recitation of the poet, and the chorus was exer- 
cised in the same manner. This was called teaching a lolay. 
As the poet was also a musician, and for the most part a 
player likewise, this must have greatly contributed to the 
perfection of the performance. 

We may safely allow that the task of the modern player, 
who must change his person without concealing it, is much 
more difficult ; but this difficulty afl'ords no just criterion for 
deciding which of the two the preference must be awarded, 
as a skilful representation of the noble and the beautiful. 

As the features of the player acquired a more decided ex- 
pression from the mask, as his voice was strengthened by a 
contrivance attached to the mask, so the cothurnus, consisting 



COSTUME PICTURESQUE GROUPING. 



L m ■ 



of several soles of considerable thickness, as may be seen i 
the ancient statues of Melpomene, raised his figure consider- 
ably above the usual standard. The female j^arts were also 
played by men, as the voice and general carriage of women 
would have been inadequate to the energy of tragic heroines. 
The forms of the masks*, and the whole appeai-ance of the 
tragic figures, we may easily suppose, were sufficiently beau- 
tiful and dignified. We should do well to have the ancient 
sculpture always present to our minds ; and the most accurate 
conception, perhaps, that we can possibly have, is to imagine 
them so many statues in the grand style endowed with life 
and motion. But, as in sculpture, they were fond of dispens- 
ing as much as possible with dress, for the sake of exhibiting 
the more essential beauty of the figure ; on the stage they 
would endeavour, from an opposite principle, to clothe as 
much as they could well do, both from a regard to decency, 
and because the actual forms of the body would not corres- 

* We have obtained a knowledge of them from the imitations in stone 
which have come down to us. They display both beauty and variety. That 
great variety must have taken place in the tragical department (in the comic 
we can have no doubt about the matter) is evident from the rich store of 
technical expressions in the Greek language, for every gradation of the age, 
and character of masks. See the Onomasticon of Jul. Pollux. In the 
marble masks, however, we can neither see the thinness of the mass from 
which the real masks were executed, the more deUcate colouring, nor the 
exquisite mechanism of the fittings. The abundance of excellent work- 
men possessed by Athens, in everj'thing which had a reference to the 
plastic arts, wiU. warrant the conjecture that they were in this respect in- 
imitable. Those who have seen the masks of wax in the grand style, which 
in some degree contain the whole head, lately contrived at the Roman car- 
nival, may form to themselves a pretty good idea of the theatrical masks of 
the ancients. They imitate hfe, even to its movements, in a most masterly 
maimer, and at such a distance as that from which the ancient players were 
seen, the deception is most perfect. They always contain the white of the 
eye, as we see it in the ancient masks, and the person covered sees merely 
through the aperture left for the iris. The ancients must sometimes have 
gone still farther, and contrived also an iris for the masks, according to 
the anecdote of the singer Thamyris, who, in a piece which was probably 
of Sophocles, made his appearance with a black eye. Even accidentcd 
cu'cumstances were imitated ; for instance, the cheeks of Tyro, streaming 
blood from the cruel conduct of his stepmother. The head from the mask 
must no doubt have appeared somewhat large for the rest of the figure ; 
but this disproportion, in tragedy at least, would not be perceived from 
the elevation of the cothumus. 



ANCIENT TRAGEDY AND OPERA. 63 

pond sufficiently with the beauty of the countenanceo They 
would also exhibit their divinities^ which in sculpture we 
always observe either entirely naked, or only half covered, in 
a complete dress. They had recourse to a number of means 
for giving a suitable strength to the forms of the limbs, 
and thus restoring proportion to the increased height of the 
player. 

The great breadth of the theatre in proportion to its depth 
must have given to the grouping of the figures the simple and 
distinct order of the bas-relief. We moderns prefer on the 
stage, as elsewhere, groups of a picturesque description, with 
figures more closely crowded together, and partly concealing 
one another, and partly retiring into the distance; but the 
ancients were so little fond of foreshortening, that even in their 
painting they generally avoided it. Their movement kept time 
with the rhythmus of the declamation, and in this accom- 
paniment the utmost grace and beauty were aimed at. The 
poetical conception required a certain degree of repose in the 
action, and the keeping together certain masses, so as to ex- 
hibit a succession of statuesque situations, and it is not impro- 
bable that the player remained for some time motionless in 
one attitude. But we are not to suppose from this, that the 
Greeks were contented with a cold and feeble representation 
of the passions. How could we reconcile such a supposition 
with the fact, that whole lines of their tragedies are fre- 
quently dedicated to inarticulate exclamations of pain, with 
which we have nothing to correspond in any of our modern 



It has been often conjectured that the delivery of their 
dialogue resembled the modern recitative. For such a conjec- 
ture there is no other foundation than the fact that the Greek, 
like almost all southern languages, was pronounced with a 
greater musical inflexion than ours of the North. In other 
respects their tragic declamation must, T conceive, have been 
altogether unlike recitative, being both much more measured, 
and also far removed from its studied and artificial modu- 
lation. 

So, again, the ancient tragedy, because it was accompanied 
with music and dancing*, has also been frequently compared 

* Even Barthelemy falls into this error in a note to the 70th Chapter 
of Anachamis. 



64 ESSENCE OF THE OPERA. 

witli the opera. But this comparison betrays an utter ignorance 
of the spirit of classical antiquity. Their dancing and music 
had nothing but the name in common with ours. In tragedy 
the primary object was the poetry, and everything else was 
strictly and truly subordinate to it. But in the opera the 
poetry is merely an accessory, the means of connecting the 
different parts together; and it is almost lost amidst its many 
and more favoured accompaniments. The best prescription 
for the composition of an opera is, take a rapid poetical sketch 
and then fill up and colour the outlines by the other arts. 
This anarchy of the arts, where music, dancing, and decor- 
ation are seeking to outvie each other by the profuse display 
of their most dazzling charms, constitutes the A'ery essence of 
the opera. What sort of opera-music would it be, which 
should set the words to a mere rhythmical accompaniment of 
the simplest modulations? The fantastic magic of the opera" 
consists altogether in the revelry of emulation between the 
different means, and in the medley of their profusion. This 
charm would at once be destroyed by any approximation to 
the severity of the ancient taste in any one point, even in that 
of the costume ; for the contrast would render the variety in 
all the other departments even the more insupportable. Gay, 
tinselled, spangled draperies suit best to the opera ; and hence 
many things which have been censured as unnatural, such as 
exhibiting heroes warbling and trilling in the excess of de- 
spondency, are perfectly justifiable. This fairy world is not 
peopled by real men, but by a singular kind of singing crea- 
tures. Neither is it any disadvantage that the opera is 
brought before us in a language which we do not generally 
understand; the words are altogether lost in the music, and 
the language which is most harmonious and musical, and 
contains the greatest number of open vowels for the airs, and 
distinct accents for recita,tive, is therefore the best. It would 
be as incongruous to attempt to give to the opera the simplicity 
of the Grecian Tragedy, as it is absurd to think of comparing 
them together. 

In the syllabic composition, which then at least prevailed 
universally in Grecian music, the solemn choral song, of 
which Ave may form to ourselves some idea from our artless 
national airs, and more especially from our church-tunes, had 
no other instrumental accompaniment than a single flute, 



TRAGICAL LYRIC POETRY. 65 

wliich was such as not in the slightest degree to impair the 
distinctness of the words. Otherwise it must have increased 
the difficulty of the choruses and lyrical songs, which, in gene- 
ral, are the part which we find it the hardest to understand of 
the ancient tragedy, and as it must also haye been for con- 
temporary auditors. They abound in the most involved con- 
structions, the most unusual expressions, and the boldest 
images and recondite allusions. Why then should the poets 
have lavished such labour and art upon them, if it were all to be 
lost in the delivery? Such a display of ornament without an 
object would have been very unlike Grecian ways of thinking. 
In the syllabic measures of their tragedies, there generally 
prevails a highly finished regularity, but by no means a stiff 
symmetrical uniformity. Besides the infinite variety of the 
lyrical strophes, which the poet invented for each occasion, 
they have also a measure to suit the transition in the tone of 
mind from the dialogue to the lyric, the anapest ; and two for 
the dialogue itself, one of wliich, by far the most usual, the 
iambic trimeter, denoted the regular progress of the action, 
and the other, the trochaic tetrameter, was expressive of the 
impetuousness of passion. It would lead us too far into the 
depths of metrical science, were we to venture at present on 
a more minute account of the structure and significance of 
these measures. I merely wished to make this remark, as so 
much has been said of the simplicity of the ancient tragedy, 
which, no doubt, exists in the general plan, at least in the 
two oldest poets; whereas in the execution and details the 
richest variety of poetical ornament is employed. Of course 
it must be evident that the utmost accuracy in the delivery 
of the different modes of versification was expected from the 
player, as the delicacy of the Grecian ear would not excuse, 
even in an orator, the false quantity of a single syllable. 



66 ESSENCE OF GREEK TRAGEDY. 



LECTURE V. 

Essence of the Greek Tragedies — Ideality of the Representation — Idea of 
Fate — Source of the Pleasui-e derived from Tragical Representations — 
Import of the Chorus — The materials of Greek Tragedy derived from 
Mythology — Comparison with the Plastic Arts. 

We come now to the essence of Greek tragedy. That in 
conception it was ideal, is universally allowed ; this, however, 
must not be understood as implying that all its characters 
were depicted as morally perfect. In such a case what 
room could there be for that contrast and collision which the 
very plot of a drama requires? — They have their weaknesses, 
errors, and even crimes, but the manners are always elevated 
above reality, and every person is invested with as high a 
portion of dignity as was compatible with his part in the 
action. But this is not all! The ideality of the represen- 
tation chiefly consisted in the elevation of every thing in it 
to a higher sphere. Tragic poetry wished to separate the 
image of humanity which it presented to us, from the level of 
nature to which man is in reality chained down, like a slave 
of the soil. How was this to be accomplished? By exhibit- 
ing to us an image hovering in the air? But this would have 
been incompatible with the law of gravitation and with the 
earthly materials of which our bodies are framed. Frequently, 
what is praised in art as ideal is really nothing more. But 
this would give us nothing more than airy evanescent shadows 
incapable of making any durable impression on the mind. 
The Greeks, however, in their artistic creations, succeeded 
most perfectly, in combining the ideal with the real, or, to 
drop school terms, an elevation more than human with all the 
truth of life, and in investing the manifestation of an idea 
with energetic corporeity. They did not allow their figures 
to flit about without consistency in empty space, but they 
fixed the statue of humanity on the eternal and immovable 
basis of moral liberty; and that it might stand there un- 
shaken, formed it of stone or brass, or some more massive 



UNFATHOMABLE POWER OP DESTINY. 67 

substance than the bodies of living men, making an impression 
by its very weight, and from its very elevation and magnifi- 
cence only the more completely subject to the laws of gravity. 

Inward liberty and external necessity are the two poles oi 
the tragic world. It is only by contrast with its opposite 
that each of these ideas is brought into full manifestation. 
As the feeling of an internal power of self-determination 
elevates the man above the unlimited dominion of impulse 
and the instincts of nature; in a word, absolves him from 
nature's guardianship, so the necessity, which alongside of 
her he must recognize, is no mere natural necessity, but one 
lying beyond the world of sense in the abyss of infinitude; 
consequently it exhibits itself as the unfathomable power of 
Destiny. Hence this power extends also to the world of 
gods : for the Grecian gods are mere powers of nature ; and 
although immeasurably higher than mortal man, yet, com- 
pared with infinitude, they are on an equal footing with himself. 
In Homer and in the tragedians, the gods are introduced in a 
manner altogether difi'erent. In the former their appearance 
is arbitrary and accidental, and communicate to the epic 
poem no higher interest than the charm of tiie wonderful. 
But in Tragedy the gods either come forward as the servants 
of destiny, and mediate executors of its decrees; or else 
approve themselves godlike only by asserting their liberty of 
action, and entering upon the same struggles with fate which 
man himself has to encounter. 

This is the essence of the tragical in the sense of the 
ancients. We are accustomed to give to all terrible or sor- 
rowful events the appellation of tragic, and it is certain that 
such events are selected in preference by Tragedy, though a 
melancholy conclusion is by no means indispensably neces- 
sary ; and several ancient tragedies, viz., the Eumenides, Phi- 
loctetes, and in some degree also the CEdipus Coloneus, without 
mentioning many of the pieces of Euripides, have a happy 
and cheerful termination. 

But why does Tragedy select subjects so awfully repugnant 
to the wishes and the wants of our sensuous nature ? This 
question has often been asked, and seldom satisfactorily an- 
swered. Some have said that the pleasure of such represen- 
tations arises from the comparison we make between the 
calmness and tranquillity of our own situation, and the 

E 2 



68 ON TRAGICAL llEPRESENTATIOXS. 

storms and perplexities to wliich the victims of passion are^ ■ 
exposed. But when we take a warm interest in the persons 
of a tragedy, we cease to think of ourselves ; and when this 
is not the case, it is the best of all proofs that we take but a 
feeble interest in the exhibited story, and that the tragedy 
has failed in its effect. Others again have had recourse to a 
supposed feeling for moral improvement, which is gratified by 
the view of poetical justice in the reward of the good and the 
punishment of the wicked. But he for whom the aspect 
of such dreadful examples could really be wholesome, must 
be conscious of a base feeling of depression, very far removed 
from genuine morality, and would experience humiliation 
rather than elevation of mind. Besides, poetical justice is by 
no means indispensable to a good tragedy ; it may end with 
the suffering of the just and the triumph of the wicked, if 
only the balance be preserved in the spectator's own con- 
sciousness by the prospect of futurity. Little does it mend 
the matter to say with Aristotle, that the object of tragedy 
is to purify the passions by pity and terror. In the first 
place commentators have never been able to agree as to the 
meaning of tfeis proposition, and have had recourse to the 
most forced explanations of it. Look, for instance, into the 
Bramaturgie of Lessing. Lessing gives a new explanation 
of his own, and fancies he has found in Aristotle a poetical 
Euclid. But mathematical demonstrations are liable to no 
misconception, and geometrical evidence may well be sup- 
posed inapplicable to the theory of the fine arts. Supposing, 
however, that tragedy does operate this moral cure in us, still 
she does so by the painful feelings of terror and compassion : 
and it remains to be proved how it is that we take a pleasure 
in subjecting ourselves to such an operation. 

Others have been pleased to say that we are attracted to 
theatrical representations from the want of some violent agi- 
tation to rouse us out of the torpor of our every-day life. 
Such a craving does exist ; I have already acknowledged the 
existence of this want, when speaking of the attractions of 
the drama; but to it we must equally attribute the fights of 
wild beasts among the Romans, nay, even the combats of 
the gladiators. But must we, less indurated, and more in- 
clined to tender feelings, require demi-gods and heroes to 
descend, like so many desperate gladiators, into the bloody 



SOURCE OF I'LEASURB DERIVED FROM TRAGEDY. 69 

arena of tho tragic stage, in order to agitate our nerves by 
the spectacle of their sufferings? No: it is not the sight of 
suffering which constitutes the charm of a tragedy, or even of 
the games of the circus, or of the fight of wikl beasts. In 
the latter we see a display of activity, strength, and courage ; 
splendid qualities these, and related to the mental and moral 
powers of man. The satisfaction, therefore, wiiich we derive 
from the representation, in a good tragedy, of powerful situ- 
ations and overwhelming sorrow^s, must be ascribed either 
to the feeling of the dignity of human nature, excited in us 
by such grand instances of it as are therein displayed, or to the 
trace of a higher order of things, impressed on the apparently 
irregular course of events, and mysteriously revealed in them ; 
or perhaps to both these causes conjointly. 

The true reason, therefore, why tragedy need not shun even 
the harshest subject is, that a spiritual and invisible power can 
only be measured by the opposition which it encounters from 
some external force capable of being appreciated by the senses. 
The moral freedom of man, therefore, can only be displayed 
in a conflict with his sensuous impulses : so long as no higher 
call summons it to action, it is either actually dormant within 
him, or appears to slumber, since otherwise it does but me- 
chanically fulfil its part as a mere power of nature. It is 
only amidst difficulties and struggles that the moral part of 
man's nature avouches itself. If, therefore, we must explain 
the distinctive aim of tragedy by way of theory, we would 
give it thus : that to establish the claims of the mind to a 
divine origin, its earthly existence must be disregarded as 
vain and insignificant, all sorrows endured and all difficulties 
overcome. 

With respect to everything connected with this point, I 
refer my hearers to the Section on the Sublime in Kant's 
Criticism of the Judgment (Kritik der Urtheilshraft), to the 
complete perfection of which nothing is wanting but a more 
definite idea of the tragedy of the ancients, with which he 
does not seem to have been very well acquainted. 

I come now to another peculiarity which distinguishes the 
tragedy of the ancients from ours, I mean the Chorus. We 
must consider it as a personified reflection on the action 
which is going on ; the incorporation into the representation 
itself of the sentiments of the poet, as the spokesman of the 



70 THE chorus: its national signification. 



1 



wbole human race. This is its general poetical character; 
and that is all that here concerns us, and that character is by 
no means affected by the circumstance that the Chorus had a 
local origin in the feasts of Bacchus, and that, moreover, it 
always retained among the Greeks a peculiar national sig- 
nification j publicity being, as we have already said, according 
to their reptrblican notions, essential to the completeness of 
every important transaction. If in their compositions they 
reverted to the heroic ages, in which monarchical polity was 
yet in force, they nevertheless gave a certain republican cast 
to the families of their heroes, by carrying on the action in 
presence either of the elders of the people, or of other persons 
who represented some correspondent rank or position in the 
social body. This publicity does not, it is true, quite corre- 
spond with Homer's picture of the manners of the heroic age ; 
but both costume and mythology vv^ere handled by dramatic 
poetry with the same spirit of independence and conscious 
liberty. 

These thoughts, then, and these modes of feeling led to the 
introduction of the Chorus, which, in order not to interfere 
with the appearance of reality which the whole ought to 
possess, must adjust itself to the ever-varying requisitions of 
the exhibited stories. Whatever it might be and do in each 
particular piece, it represented in general, first the common 
mind of the nation, and then the general sympathy of all 
mankind. In a word, the Chorus is the ideal spectator. It 
mitigates the impression of a heart-rending or moving story, 
while it conveys to the actual spectator a lyrical and musical 
expression of his own emotions, and elevates him to the 
region of contemplation. 

Modern critics have never known what to make of the 
Chorus; and this is the less to be wondered at, as Aristotle 
affords no satisfactory solution of the matter. Its ofiice is 
better painted by Horace, who ascribes to it a general expres- 
sion of moral sympathy, exhortation, instruction, and warn- 
ing. But the critics in question have either believed that its 
chief object was to prevent the stage from ever being alto- 
gether empty, whereas in truth the stage was not at all the 
proper place for the Chorus ; or else they have censured it as 
a superfluous and cumbersome appendage, expressing their 
astonishment at the alleged absurdity of carrying on secret 



MATERIALS OF GREEK TRAGEDY. 71 

transactions in the presence of assembled multitudes. They 
have also considered it as the principal reason with the Greek 
tragedians for the strict observance of the unity of place, as 
it could not be changed without the removal of the Chorus; 
an act, which could not have been done without some avail- 
able pretext. Or lastly, they have believed that the Chorus 
owed its continuance from the first origin of Tragedy merely 
to accident ; and as it is plain that in Euripides, the last of 
the three great tragic poets, the choral songs have frequently 
little or no connexion with the fable, and are nothing better 
than a mere . episodical ornament, they therefore conclude 
that the Greeks had only to take one more step in the pro- 
gress of dramatic art, to explode the Chorus altogether. To 
refute these superficial conjectures, it is only necessary to 
observe that Sophocles wrote a Treatise on the Chorus, in 
prose, in opposition to the principles of some other poets ; and 
that, far from following blindly the practice which he found 
established, like an intelligent artist he was able to assign 
reasons for his own doings. 

Modern poets of the first rank have often, since the revival 
of the study of the ancients, attempted to introduce the Chorus 
in their own pieces, for the most part without a correct, and 
always without a vivid idea of its real import. They seem 
to have forgotten that we have neither suitable singing or 
dancing, nor, as our theatres are constructed, any convenient 
place for it. On these accounts it is hardly likely to become 
naturalized with us. 

The Greek tragedy, in its pure and unaltered state, will / 
always for our theatres remain an exotic plant, which we can / 
hardly hope to cultivate with any success, even in the hot-house i 
of learned art and criticism. The Grecian mythology, which y' 
furnishes the materials of ancient tragedy, is as foreign to 
the minds and imaginations of most of the spectators, as its 
form and manner of representation. But to endeavour to 
force into that form materials of a wholly difi'erent nature, 
an historical one, for example, to assume that form, must 
always be a most unprofitable and hopeless attempt. 

I have called mythology the chief materials of tragedy. 
We know, indeed, of two historical tragedies by Grecian 
authors : the Capture of Miletus, of Phrynichus, and the Per- 
sians, of i3^schylus, a piece which still exists ; but these sin- 



72 GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY. 

gular exceptions both belong to an epocb wlien the art had 
not attained its full maturity, and among so many hundred 
examples of a different description, only serve to establish 
more strongly the truth of the rule. The sentence passed by 
the Athenians on Phrynichus, in which they condemned him 
to a pecuniary fine because he had painfully agitated them by 
representing on the stage a contemporary calamity, which with 
due caution they might, perhaps, have avoided; however hard 
and arbitrary it may appear in a judicial point of view, displays, 
however, a correct feeling of the proprieties and limits of art. 
Oppressed by the consciousness of the proximity and reality 
of the represented story, the mind cannot retain that repose 
and self-possession which are necessary for the reception of 
pure tragical impressions. The heroic fables, on the other 
hand, came to view at a certain remoteness ; and surrounded 
with a certain halo of the marvellous. The marvellous pos- 
sesses the advantage that it can, in some measure, be at once 
believed and disbelieved : believed in so far as it is supported 
by its connexion with other opinions ; disbelieved while we 
never take such an immediate interest in it as we do in what 
wears the hue of the every-day life of our own experience. 
The Grecian mythology was a web of national and local tra- 
ditions, held in equal honour as a sequence of religion, and as 
an introduction to history; everywhere preserv^ed in full 
vitality among the people by ceremonies and monuments, 
already elaborated for the requirements of art and the higher 
species of poetry by the diversified manner in which it has 
been handled, and by the numerous epic or merely mythical 
poets. The tragedians had only, therefore, to engraft one 
species of poetry on another. Certain postulates, and those 
invariably serviceable to the air of dignity and grandeur, and 
the removing of all meanness of idea, were conceded to them 
at the very outset. Everything, down to the very errors and 
weaknesses of that departed race of heroes who claimed their 
descent from the gods, was ennobled by the sanctity of legend. 
Those heroes were painted as beings endowed with more than 
human strength ; but, so far from possessing unerring virtue 
and wisdom, they were even depicted as under the dominion 
of furious and unbridled passions. It was an age of wild 
eflfervescence ; the hand of social order had not as yet brought 
the soil of morality into cultivation, and it yielded at the 



THE ATTIC POET ATHENS. 73 

same time tlie most beneficent and poisonous productions^, with 
the fresh luxuriant fulness of prolific nature. Here the 
occurrence of the monstrous and horrible did not necessarily 
indicate that degradation and corruption out of v.diich alone, 
under the development of law and order, they could arise, and 
which, in such a state of things, make them fill us with sen- 
timents of horror and aversion. The guilty beings of the 
fable are, if we may be allowed the expression, exempt from 
human jurisdiction, and amenable to a higher tribunal alone. 
Some, indeed, have advanced the opinion, that the Greeks, as 
zealous republicans, took a particular pleasure in witnessing 
the representation of the outrages and consequent calamities 
of the different royal families, and are almost disposed to con- 
sider the ancient tragedy in general as a satire on monarchical 
government. Such a party-view, however, would have dead- 
ened the sympathy of the audience, and consequently destroyed 
the effect which it was the aim of the tragedy to produce. 

Besides, it must be remarked that the royal families, whose 
crimes and consequent sufferings afforded the most abundant 
materials for affecting tragical pictures, were the Pelopida) of 
Mycenae, and the Labdacidte of Thebes, families who had 
nothing to do with the political history of the Athenians, 
for whom the pieces were composed. We do not see that the 
Attic poets ever endeavoured to exhibit the ancient kings of 
their country in an odious light ; on the contrary, they always 
hold up their national hero, Theseus, for public admiration, 
as a model of justice and moderation, the champion of the op- 
pressed, the first lawgiver, and even as the founder of liberty. 
It was also one of their favourite modes of flattering the peo- 
ple, to show to them Athens, even in the heroic ages, as distin- 
guished above all the other states of Greece, for obedience to 
the laws, for humanity, and acknowledgment of the national 
rights of the Hellenes. That universal revolution, hj which 
the independent kingdoms of ancient Greece were converted 
into a community of small free states, had separated the 
heroic age from the age of social cultivatiou, by a wide inter- 
val, beyond which a few families only attempted to trace 
their genealogy. This was extremely advantageous for the 
ideal elevation of the characters of Greek tragedy, as few 
human things will admit of a very close inspection without 
betraying some imperfections. To the very different relations 



74 THE GREEK TRAGEDIANS. 



of the age in wtich those heroes lived, the standard of mere 
civil and domestic morality is not applicable, and to judge of 
them the feeling must go back to the primary ingredients of 
human nature. Before the existence of constitutions, — when 
as yet the notions of law and right were undeveloped, — the 
sovereigns were their own lawgivers, in a world which as yet 
was dependent on them ; and the fullest scope was thus given 
to the energetic will, either for good or for evil. Moreover, 
an age of hereditary kingdom naturally exhibited more strik- 
ing instances of sudden changes of fortune than the later 
times of political equality. It was in this respect that the 
high rank of the principal characters was essential, or at least 
favourable to tragic irapressiveness ; and not, as some mo- 
dems have pretended, because the changing fortunes of such 
persons exercise a material influence on the happiness or 
misery of numbers, and therefore they alone are sufficiently 
important to interest us in their behalf; nor, again, because 
internal elevation of sentiment must be clothed with external 
dignity, to call forth our respect and admiration. The 
Greek tragedians paint the downfall of kingly houses without 
any reference to its effects on the condition of the people; 
they show us the man in the king, and, far from veiling their 
heroes from our sight by their purple mantles, they allow ns 
to look, through their vain splendour, into a bosom torn and 
harrowed with grief and passion. That the main essential 
was not so much the regal dignity as the heroic costume, is 
evident from those tragedies of the moderns which have been 
written under different circumstances indeed, but still upon 
this supposed principle : such, I mean, as under the existence 
of monarchy have taken their subject from kings and courts. 
From the existing reality they dare not draw, for nothing 
is less suitable for tragedy than a -court and a court life. 
Wherever, therefore, they do not paint an ideal kingdom, 
with the manners of some remote age, they invariably 
fall into stiffness and formality, which are much more fatal 
to boldness of character, and to depth of pathos, than the 
monotonous and equable relations of private life. 

A few mythological fables alone seem originally marked 
out for tragedy: such, for example, as the long-continued 
alternation of crime, revenge, and curses, which we witness in 
the house of Atreus. When we examine the names of the 



COMPARISON WITH THE PLASTIC ART. 75 

pieces whicli are lost, we have great difficulty in conceiving 
how the mythological fables (such, at least, as they are known 
to us,) could have furnished sufficient materials for the com- 
pass of an entire tragedy. It is true, the poets, in the various 
editions of the same story, had a great latitude of selection ; 
and this very fluctuation of tradition justified them in going 
still farther, and making considerable alterations in the cir- 
cumstances of an event, so that the inventions employed for 
this purpose in one piece sometimes contradict the story as 
given by the same poet in another. We must, however, prin- 
pally explain the prolific capability of mythology, for the pur- 
poses of tragedy, by the principle which we observe in opera- 
tion throughout the history of Grecian mind and art; that, 
namely, the tendency which predominated for the time, as- 
similated everything else to itself. As the heroic legend with 
all its manifold discrepancies was easily developed into the 
tranquil fulness and light variety of epic poetry, so after- 
wards it readily responded to the demands which the tragic 
writers made upon it for earnestness, energy, and compression; 
and whatever in this sifting piocess of transformation fell out 
as inapplicable to tragedy, aiBforded materials for a sort of 
half sportive, though still ideal representation, in the subor- 
dinate species called the satirical drama. 

I hope I shall be forgiven, if I attempt to illustrate the 
above reflections on the essence of Ancient Tragedy, by 
a comparison borrowed from the plastic arts, which will, 
I trust, be found somewhat more than a mere fanciful resem- 
blance. 

The Homeric epic is, in poetry, what bas-relief is in sculp- 
ture, and tragedy the distinct isolated group. 

The poetry of Homer, sprung from the soil of legend, is 
not yet wholly detached from it, even as the figures of a bas- 
relief adhere to an extraneous backing of the original block. 
These figures are but slightly raised, and in the epic poem 
all is painted as past and remote. In bas-relief the figures 
are usually in profile, and in the epos all are characterized 
in the simplest manner in relief; they are not grouped together, 
but follow one another; so Homer's heroes advance, one by 
one, in succession before us. It has been remarked that the 
Iliad is not definitively closed, but that we are left to suppose 
something both to precede and to follow it. The bas-relief 



76 THE HOMERIC POETRY. 

is equally witliout limit, and may be continued ad infini- 
turn, either from before or behind, on which account the 
ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of an inde- 
finite extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines of 
combatants, &c. Hence they also exhibited bas-reliefs on 
curved surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, 
where, by the curvature, the two ends are withdrawn from 
our sight, and where, while we advance, one object appears as 
another disappears. Reading Homer is very much like such 
a circuit; the present object alone arresting our attention, we 
lose sight of that which precedes, and do not concern ourselves 
about what is to follow. 

But in the distinct outstanding group, and in Tragedy, 
sculpture and poetry alike bring before our eyes an inde- 
pendent and definite whole. To distinguish it from natural 
reality, the former places it on a base as on an ideal ground, 
detaching from it as much as possible all foreign and acci- 
dental accessories, that the eye may rest wholly on the essen- 
tial objects, the figures themselves. These figures the sculptor 
works out with their whole body and contour, and as he 
rejects the illusion of colours, announces by the solidity and 
uniformity of the mass in which they are constructed, a crea- 
tion of no perishable existence, but endowed with a higher 
power of endurance. 

Beauty is the aim of sculpture, and repose is most advan- 
tageous for the display of beauty. Repose alone, therefore, 
is suitable to the single figure. But a number of figures can 
only be combined together into unity, i. e., grouped by an 
action. The group represents beauty in motion, and its aim 
is to combine both in the highest degree of perfection. This 
can be effected even while portraying the most violent bodily 
or mental anguish, if only the artist finds means so to temper 
the expression by some trait of manly resistance, calm 
grandeur, or inherent sweetness, that, with all the most 
moving truth, the lineaments of beauty shall yet be undefaced. 
The observation of Winkelmann on this subject is inimitable. 
He says, that " beauty with the ancients was the tongue on 
the balance of expression," and in this sense the groups of 
Niobe and Laocoon are master-pieces ; the one in the sublime 
and severe ; the other in the studied and ornamental style. 

The comparison with ancient tragedy is the more apposite 



GROUPS OF KIOBE AND LAOCOON. 177 

here, as we know tliat botli j^scliyliis and Sophocles produced 
a Niobe, and that Sophocles was also the author of a Lao- 
coon. In the group of the Laocoon the efforts of the body in 
enduring, and of the mind in resisting, are balanced in admi- 
rable equipoise. The children calling for help, tender objects 
of comj^assion, not of admiration, recal our eyes to the father, 
who seems to be in vain uplifting his eyes to the gods. The 
wreathed serpents represent to us that inevitable destiny 
which often involves all the parties of an action in one com- 
mon ruin. And yet the beauty of proportion, the agreeable 
flow of the outline, are not lost in this violent struggle ; and 
a representation, the most appalling to the senses, is yet 
managed with forbearance, while a mild breath of graceful- 
ness is diffused over the whole. 

In the group of Niobe there is the same perfect mixture 
of terror and pity. The upturned looks of the mother, and 
the mouth half open in supplication, seem yet to accuse the invi- 
sible wrath of heaven. The daughter, clinging in the agonies 
of death to the bosom of her mother, in her childish innocence 
has no fear but for herself: the innate impulse of self-preser- 
vation was never more tenderly and aflfectingly expressed. 
On the other hand, can there be a more beautiful image of 
self-devoting, heroic magnanimity than Niobe, as she bends 
forward to receive, if possible, in her own body the deadly 
shaft? Pride and defiance dissolve in the depths of maternal 
love. The more than earthly dignity of the features are the 
less marred b}^ the agony, as under the rapid accumulation of 
blow upon blow she seems, as in the deeply significant fable^ 
already petrifying into the stony torpor. But before this 
figure, thus twice struck into stone, and yet so full of life and 
soul, — before this stony terminus of the limits of human en- 
durance, the spectator melts into tears. 

Amid all the agitating emotions which these groups give rise 
to, there is still a something in their aspect which attracts the 
mind and gives rise to manifold contemplation ; so the ancient 
tragedy leads us forward to the highest reflections involved in 
the very sphere of things it sets before us — reflections on the 
nature and the inexplicable mystery of man's being. 



78 TRAGIC ART AMONG THE GREEKS. 



LECTURE VI. 

Progress of the Tragic Art among the Greeks — Various styles of Tragic 
Art — vEschylus — Connexion in a Trilogy of ^schylus — His remain- 
ing Works. 

Of the inexhaustible stores possessed by the Greeks in the 
department of tragedy, which the public competition at the 
Athenian festivals called into being (as the rival poets always 
contended for a prize), very little indeed has come down 
to us. We only possess works of three of their numerous 
tragedians, ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and of these 
but a few in proportion to the whole number of their compo- 
sitions. The extant dramas are such as were selected by the 
Alexandrian critics as the foundation for the study of the 
older Grecian literature, not because they alone were deserv- 
ing of estimation, but because they afforded the best illustra- 
tion of the various styles of tragic art. Of each of the two 
older poets, we have seven pieces remaining; in these, how- 
ever, we have, according to the testimony of the ancients, 
several of their most distinguished productions. Of Euripides 
we have a much, greater number, and we might well exchange 
many of them for other works which are now lost; for exam- 
ple, for the satirical dramas of Achseus, ^schylus, and Sopho- 
cles, or, for the sake of comparison with ^schylus, for some 
of Phrynichus' pieces, or of Agathon's, whom Plato describes 
as effeminate, but sweet and affecting, and who was a con- 
temporary of Euripides, though somewhat his junior. 

Leaving to antiquarians to sift the stories about the waggon 
of the strolling Thespis, the contests for the prize of a 
he-goat, from which the name of tragedy is said to be 
derived, and the lees of wine with which the first improvisa- 
tory actors smeared over their visages, from which rude 
beginnings, it is pretended, ^schylus, by one gigantic stride, 
gave to tragedy that dignified form under which it appears in 



^SCHYLUS: THE CREATOR OF TRAGEDY. 79 

his works, we shall proceed immediately to the consideration 
of the poets themselves. 

The tragic style of ^Eschylus (I use the word "style" in 
the sense it receives in sculpture, and not in the exclusive sig- 
nification of the manner of writing,) is grand, severe, and not 
unfrequently hard : that of Sophocles is marked by the most 
finished symmetry and harmonious gracefulness : that of Eu- 
ripides is soft and luxuriant ; overflowing in his easy copious- 
ness, he often sacrifices the general effect to brilliant passages. 
The analogies which the undisturbed development of the 
fine arts among the Greeks everywhere furnishes, will enable 
us, throughout to compare the epochs of tragic art with those 
of sculpture, -^schylus is the Phidias of Tragedy, Sopho- 
cles her Polycletus, and Euripides her Lysippus. Phidias 
formed sublime images of the gods, but lent them an ex- 
trinsic magnificence of material, and surrounded their ma- 
jestic repose with images of the most violent struggles in 
strong relief. Polycletus carried his art to perfection of pro- 
portion, and hence one of his statues was called the Standard 
of Beauty. Lysippus distinguished himself by the fire of his 
works ; but in his time Sculpture had deviated from its origi- 
nal destination, and was much more desirous of expressing 
the charm of motion and life than of adhering to ideality 
of form. 

^schylus is to be considered as the creator of Tragedy : in 
full panoply she sprung from his head, like Pallas from the 
head of Jupiter. He clad her with dignity, and gave her an 
appropriate stage; he was the inventor of scenic pomp, and 
not only instructed the chorus in singing and dancing, but 
appeared himself as an actor. He was the first that expanded 
the dialogue, and set limits to the lyrical part of tragedy, 
which, however, still occupies too much space in his pieces. 
His characters are sketched with a few bold and strong 
touches. His plots are simple in the extreme : he did not 
understand the art of enriching and varying an action, and of 
giving a measured march and progress to the complication 
and denouement. Hence his action often stands still; a cir- 
cumstance which becomes yet more apparent, from the undue 
extension of his choral songs. But all his poetry evinces a 
sublime and earnest mind. Terror is his element, and not the 
softer affections, he holds up a head of Medusa before the 




so HIS HEROIC GENIUS AI<D CHARACTER. 

petrified spectators. In liis handling Destiny appears au 
stere in the extreme ; she hovers over the heads of mortals in 
all her gloom}'" majesty. The cothurnus of ^Eschylus has, 
as it were, the weight of iron: gigantic figures stalk in 
upon it. It seems as if it required an effort for him to con- 
descend to jDaint mere men ; he is ever bringing in gods, but 
especially the Titans, those elder divinities who typify the 
gloomy powers of primajval nature, and who had been driven 
long ago into 'Tartarus before the presence of a new and 
better order of things. He endeavours to swell out his lan- 
guage to a gigantic sublimity, corresponding to the vast 
dimensions of his personages Hence he abounds in harsh 
compounds and over-strained epithets, and the lyrical parts 
of his pieces are often, from their involved coustruction, ex- 
tremely obscure. In the singular strangeness of his images and 
expressions he resembles Dante and Shakspeare. Yet in 
these images there is no want of that terrific grace which 
almost all the writers of anticpity commend in ^schylus. 

iEschylus flourished in the very freshness and vigour of 
Grecian freedom, and a proud sense of the glorious struggle 
by which it was won, seems to have animated him and his 
poetry. He had been an eye-witness of the greatest and 
most glorious event in the history of Greece, the overthrow 
and annihilation of the Persian hosts under Darius and Xerxes, 
and had fought with distinguished bravery in the memorable 
battles of Marathon and Salamis. In the Persians he has, in 
an indirect manner, sung the triumph which he contributed 
to obtain, while he paints the dovrnfall of the Persian ascend- 
ancy, and the ignominious return of the despot, with difficulty 
esca,pii:g with his life, to his royal residence. The battle of 
Salamis he describes in the most vivid and glowing colours. 
Through the whole of this piece, and the Seven before Thehes^ 
there gushes forth a warlike vein; the personal inclination of 
the poet for a soldier's life, shines throughout with the most 
dazzling lustre. It was well remarked by Gorgias, the 
soj>hist, that Mars, instead of Bacchus, had inspired this last 
drama; for Bacchus, and not Apollo, was the tutelary deity 
of tragic poets, which, on a first view of the matter, appears 
somewhat singular, but then we must recollect tbat Bacchus 
was not merely the god of wine and joy, but also the god of 
all higher kinds of inspiration. 



TRILOGY OF ^SCHYLUS. 81 

Among the remaining pieces of ^schylus, we have what is 
highly deserving of our attention — a complete Trilogy. The 
antiquarian account of the trilogies is this : that in the more 
early times the poet did not contend for the prize with a 
single piece, hut with three, which, however, were not always 
-connected together in their subjects, and that to these was added 
a fourth, — namely, a satiric drama. All were acted in one day, 
one after another. The idea which, in relation to the tragic 
art, we must form of the trilogy, is this : a tragedy cannot 
be indefinitely lengthened and continued, like the Homeric 
Epos for instance, to which whole rhapsodies have been ap- 
pended; tragedy is too independent and complete within 
itself for this; nevertheless, several tragedies may be con- 
nected together in one great cycle by means of a common 
destiny running through the actions of all. Hence the re- 
striction to the number three admits of a satisfactory expla- 
nation. It is the thesis, the antithesis, and the synthesis. 
The advantage of this conjunction was that, by the considera- 
tion of the connected fables, a more complete gratification was 
furnished than could possibly be obtained from a single action. 
The subjects of the three tragedies might be separated by a 
wide interval of time, or follow close upon one another. 

The three pieces which form the trilogy of jS^schylus, are 
the Aga7nemnon, the Choephoroe or, we should call it, Electra, 
and the Eumenides or Furies. The subject of the first is the 
murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, on his return from 
Troy. In the second, Orestes avenges his father by killing 
his mother : facto pius et sceleratus eoclem. This deed, al- 
though enjoined by the most powerful motives, is, however, 
repugnant to the natural and moral order of things. Orestes, 
as a prince, was, it is true, called upon to exercise justice, even 
on the members of his own family ; but we behold him here 
' Tinder the necessity of stealing in disguise into the dwelling of 
the tyrannical usurper of his throne, and of going to work 
like an assassin. The memory of his father pleads his excuse; 
but however much Clytemnestra may have deserved her 
death, the voice of blood cries from within. This conflict of 
natural duties is represented in the Emnenides in the form of 
a contention among the gods, some of whom approve of the 
deed of Orestes, while others persecute him, till at last Di- 
vine Wisdom, in the person of Minerva, balances the opposite 

F 



82 THE TlliLOGY, ONE DRAM.^. 

claims^ establishes peace^ and puts an end to the long series of 
crime and punishment which have desolated the rojal house 
of Atreus. 

A considerable interval takes place between the period of 
the first and second pieces, during which Orestes grows up to 
manhood. The second and third are connected together 
immediately in order of time. Upon the murder of his 
mother, Orestes flees forthwith to Delphi, where we find him 
at the commencement of the Eumenides. 

In each of the two first pieces, there is a visible reference 
to the one which follows. In Agamemnon, Cassandra and the 
chorus, at the close, predict to the haughty Clytemnestra and 
her paramour, ^gisthus, the punishment which awaits them 
at the hands of Orestes. In the Choe'phorce, Orestes, upon the 
execution of the deed of retribution, finds that all peace is 
gone : the furies of his mother begin to persecute him, and he 
announces his resolution of taking refuge in Delphi. 

The connexion is therefore evident throughout; and we 
may consider the three pieces, which were connected together 
even in the representation, as so many acts of one great and 
entire drama. I mention this as a preliminary justification of 
the practice of Shakspeare and other modern poets, to con- 
nect together in one representation a larger circle of human 
destinies, as we can produce to the critics who object to this 
the supposed example of the ancients. 

In Agamemnon, it was the intention of ^schylus to exhibit 
to us a sudden fall from the highest pinnacle of prosperity 
and renown into the abyss of ruin. The prince, the hero, 
the general of the combined forces of the Greeks, in the very 
moment of success and the glorious achievement of the 
destruction of Troy, the fame of which is to be re-echoed from 
the mouths of the greatest poets of all ages, in the very act of 
crossing the threshold of his home, after which he had so long 
sighed, and amidst the fearless security of preparations for a 
festival, is butchered, according to the expression of Homer, 
" like an ox in the stall," slain by his faithless wife, his throne 
usurped by her worthless seducer, and his children consigned 
to banishment or to hopeless servitude. 

With the view of giving greater efiect to this dreadful 
reverse of fortune, the poet endeavours to throw a greater 
splendour over the destruction of Troy. He has done this in 



DESCRIPTION AND DEVELOPMENT. 83 

the first half of tLe piece in a manner peculiar to himself, 
which, however singular, must be allowed to be impressive m 
the extreme, and well fitted to lay fast hold of the imagina- 
tion. It is of importance to Clytemnestra that she should not 
be surprised by the sudden arrival of her husband ; she has 
therefore arranged an uninterrupted series of signal fires from 
Troy to Mycense, to announce to her that great event. The 
piece commences with the speech of a watchman, who sup- 
plicates the gods for a deliverance from his labours^., as 
for ten long years he has been exposed to the cold dews of 
night, has witnessed the changeful course of the stars, while 
looking in vain for the expected signal ; at the same time he 
sighs in secret over the corruption which reigns within the 
royal house. At this moment he sees the long-wished-for 
beacon blazing up, and hastens to announce it to his mistress. 
A chorus of aged persons appears, and in their songs they go 
through the whole history of the Trojan War, through all its 
eventful fluctuations of fortune, from its origin, and recount all 
the prophecies relating to it, and the sacrifice of Iphigenia, by 
which the sailing of the Greeks was purchased. Clytemnestra 
explains to the chorus the joyful cause of the sacrifice which 
she orders; and the herald Talthybius immediately makes his 
appearance, who, as an eye-witness, relates the drama of the 
conquered and plundered city, consigned as a prey to the 
flames, the joy of the victors, and the glory of their leader. 
With reluctance, as if unwilling to check their congratulatory 
prayers, he recounts to them the subsequent misfortunes of the 
Greeks, their dispersion, and the shipwreck suffered by many 
of them, an immediate symptom of the wrath of the gods. It 
is obvious how little the unity of time was observed by the 
poet, — how much, on the contrary, he avails himself of the 
prerogative of his mental dominion over the powers of nature, 
to give wings to the circling hours in their course towards the 
dreadful goal. Agamemnon now arrives, borne in a sort of 
triumphal car; and seated on another, laden with booty, 
follows Cassandra, his prisoner of war, and concubine also, 
according to the customary privilege of heroes. Clytemnestra 
greets him with hypocritical joy and veneration ; she orders 
her slaves to cover the ground with the most costly embroi- 
deries of purple, that it might not be touched by the foot af 
the conqueror. Agamemnon, with wise moderation, refuses to 

p2 



84 AGAMEMNON. 

accept an tonour due only to the gods; at last be yields to her 
solicitations, and enters the palace. The chorus then begins to 
utter its dark forebodings. Clytemnestra returns to allure, 
by friendly speeches, Cassandra also to destruction. The 
latter is silent and unmoved, but the queen is hardly gone, 
when, seized with prophetic furor, she breaks out into the 
most confused and obscure lamentations, but presently unfolds 
her prophecies more distinctly to the chorus; in spirit she 
beholds all the enormities which have been perpetrated within 
that house — the repast of Thyestes, which the sun refused 
to look upon; the ghosts of the mangled children appear 
to her on the battlements of the palace. She also sees the 
death which is preparing for her lord; and, though shuddering 
at the reek of death, as if seized with madness, she rushes into 
the house to meet her own inevitable doom, while from 
behind the scene we hear the groans of the dying Agamem- 
non. The palace opens; Clytemnestra stands beside the 
body of her king and husband; like an insolent criminal, she 
not only confesses the deed, but boasts of and justifies it, as a 
righteous requital for Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia to 
his own ambition. Her jealousy of Cassandra, and criminal 
connexion with the worthless -^gisthus, who does not appear 
till after the completion of the murder and towards the con- 
clusion of the piece, are motives which she hardly touches on, 
and throws entirely into the background. This was necessary 
to preserve the dignity of the subject; for, indeed, Clytem- 
nestra could not with propriety have been portrayed as a 
frail seduced woman — she must appear with the features of 
that heroic age, so rich in bloody catastrophes, in which all 
passions were violent, and men, both in good and evil, sur- 
passed the ordinary standard of later and more degenerated 
ages. What is more revolting — what proves a deeper de- 
generacy of human nature, than horrid crimes conceived in 
the bosom of cowardly effeminacy? If such crimes are to be 
portrayed by the poet, he must neither seek to palliate them, 
nor to mitigate our horror and aversion of them. Moreover, 
by bringing the sacrifice of Tphigenia thus immediately before 
us, the poet has succeeded in lessening the indignation which 
otherwise the foul and painful fate of Agamemnon is calcu- 
lated to awaken. He cannot be pronounced wholly innocent; 
a former crime recoils on his own head : besides, according to 



THE EUMENIDES. 85 

the religious idea of the ancients, an old curse hung over his 
house, .^gisthus, the author of his destruction, is a son of 
that very Thyestes on whom his father Atreus took such an 
unnatural revenge; and this fateful connexion is vividly 
brought before our minds by the chorus, and more especially 
hy the prophecies of Cassandra. 

I pass over the subsequent piece of the Choephorce for the 
present; I shall speak of it when I come to institute a com- 
parison between the manner in which the three poets have 
handled the same subject. 

The fable of the Eumenides is, as I have already said, the 
justification of Orestes, and his absolution from bloodguilti- 
ness : it is a trial, but a trial where the accusers and the 
defenders and the presiding judges are gods. And the 
manner in which the subject is treated corresponds with its 
majesty and importance. The scene itself brought before the 
eyes of the Greeks all the highest objects of veneration that 
they acknowledged. \ 

It opens in front of the celebrated temple at Delphi, which 
occupies the background; the aged Pytliia enters in sacer- 
dotal pomp, addresses her prayers to all the gods who at any 
time presided, or still preside, over the oracle, harangues the 
assembled people (represented by the actual audience), and 
goes into the temple to seat herself on the tripod. She returns 
full of consternation, and describes what she has seen in the 
temple : a man, stained with blood, supplicating protection, 
surrounded by sleeping women with snaky hair; she then 
makes her exit by the same entrance as she came in by. 
Apollo now appears with Orestes, who is in a traveller's garb, 
and carries a sword and olive-branch in his hands. He 
promises him his farther protection, enjoins him to flee to 
Athens, and commends him to the care of the present but 
invisible Mercury, to whose safeguard travellers, and espe- 
cially those who were under the necessity of journeying by 
stealth, were usually consigned. 

Orestes goes off at the side which was supposed to lead to 
foreign lands; Apollo re-enters his temple, which remains 
open, and the Furies are seen in the interior, sleeping on 
the benches. Clytemnestra's ghost now ascends by the 
charonic stairs, and, passing through the orchestra, appears on 
the stage. We are not to imagine it a haggard skeleton, but 



86 THE EUMENIDES. 

a figure with the appearance of life, though paler, with the 
wound still open in her breast, and shrouded in ethereal- 
coloured vestments. She calls on the Furies, in the language 
of vehement reproacli, and then disappears, probably through 
a trap-door. The Furies awake, and not finding Orestes, 
they dance in wild commotion round the stage, while they 
sing the choral song. Apollo again comes out of the temple, 
and drives them away, as profaning his sanctuary. We may 
imagine him appearing with the sublime displeasure of the 
Apollo of the Vatican, with bow and quiver, but also clad 
with tunic and chlamys. 

The scene now changes; but as the Greeks on such occa- 
sions were fond of going the shortest way to work, the back- 
ground probably remained unchanged, and was now supposed 
to represent the temple of Minerva, on the Areopagus, while 
the lateral decorations were converted into Athens and its 
surrounding landscape. Orestes now enters, as from foreign 
land, and, as a suppliant, embraces the statue of Pallas stand- 
ing before the temple. The chorus (who, according to the 
poet's own description, were clothed in black, with purple 
girdles, and serpents in their hair, in masks having perhaps 
somethingof the terrific beauty of Medusa-heads, and marking 
too their great age on the principles of sculpture) follows 
close on his steps, but for the rest of the piece remains below 
in the orchestra. The Furies had at first behaved themselves 
like beasts of prey, furious at the escape of their booty, but 
now, hymning with tranquil dignity the high and terrible 
office they had among mortals, they claim the head of 
Orestes, as forfeited to them, and devote it with mysterious 
charms to endless torment. At the intercession of the suppli- 
ant, Pallas, the warrior-virgin, appears in a chariot drawn by 
four horses. She inquires the cause of his invocation, and 
listens with calm dignity to the mutual complaints of Orestes 
and his adversaries, and, at the solicitation of the two parties, 
finally undertakes, after due reflection, the office of umpire. 
The assembled judges take their seats on the steps of the 
temple — the herald commands silence among the people by 
sound of trumpet, just as in a real trial. Apollo advances to 
advocate the cause of his suppliant, the Furies in vain protest 
against his interference, and the arguments for and against 
the deed are debated between them in short speeches. The 



RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE TRILOGY. 87 

judges cast their ballots into tlie urn, Pallas throws in a whit© 
one; all is wrought up to the highest pitch of expectation; 
OresteS; in agony of suspense, exclaims to his protector — 

O Phoebus Apollo, how will the cause be decided ? 

The Furies on the other hand : 

O Night, black Mother, seest thou these doings ? 

Upon counting the black and white pebbles, they are found 
equal in number, and the accused, therefore, by the decision of 
Pallas, is acquitted. He breaks out into joyful thanksgiving, 
while the Furies on the other hand declaim against tiie over- 
bearing arrogance of these younger gods, who take such liber- 
ties with those of Titanic race. Pallas bears their rage with 
equanimity, addresses them in the language of kindness, and 
even of veneration ; and these so indomitable beings are unable 
to withstand the charms of her mild eloquence. They promise 
to bless the land which is under her tutelary protection, while 
on her part Pallas assigns them a sanctuary in the Attic do- 
main, where they are to be called the Eumenides, that is, " the 
Benevolent Goddesses." The whole ends with a solemn pro- 
cession round the theatre, with hymns of blessing, while bands 
of children, women, and old men, in purple robes and with 
torches in their hands, accompany the Furies in their exit. 

Let us now take a retrospective view of the whole trilogy. 
In the Agamemnon we have a predominance of free-will both 
in the plan and execution of the deed : the principal character 
is a great criminal, and the piece ends with the revolting im- 
pressions produced by the sight of triumphant tyranny and 
crime. T have already pointed out the allusions it contains to 
a preceding destiny. 

The deed committed in the Choephorw is partly enjoined by 
Apollo as the appointment of fate, and partly originates in 
natural motives : Orestes' desire of avenging his father, and 
his brotherly love for the oppressed Electra. It is only after 
the execution of the deed that the struggle between the most 
sacred feelings becomes manifest, and here again the sym- 
pathies of the spectators are excited without being fully 
appeased. 

From its very commencement, the Eumenides stands on the 
very summit of tragical elevation : all the past is here, as it 



88 PREGNANT MEANING OF THE WHOLE. 

■were, concentrated into a focus. Orestes has become the mere 
passive instrument of fate; and free agency is transferred to 
the more elevated sphere of the gods. Pallas is properly the 
principal character. That opposition between the most sacred 
relations, which often occurs in life as a problem not to be 
solved by man, is here represented as a contention in the , 
world of the gods. ■ 

And this brings me to the pregnant meaning of the whole." 
The ancient mythology is in general symbolical, although not 
allegorical ; for the two are certainly distinct. Allegory is 
the personification of an idea, a poetic story invented solely 
with such a view ; but that is symbolical which, created by the 
imagination for other purposes, or possessing an independent 
reality of its own, is at the same time easily susceptible of an 
emblematical explanation; and even of itself suggests it. 

The Titans in general symbolize the dark and mysterious 
powers of prima3val nature and mind; the younger gods, what- 
soever enters more immediately within the circle of conscious- 
ness. The former are more nearly allied to original chaos, 
the latter belong to a world already reduced to order. The 
Furies denote the dreadful powers of conscience, in so far as it 
rests on obscure feelings and forebodings, and yields to no 
principles of reason. In vain Orestes dwells on the just mo- 
tives which urged him to the deed, the cry of blood still sounds 
in his ear. Apollo is the god of youth, of the noble ebullition 
of passionate indignation, of bold and daring action. Accord- 
ingly this deed was commanded by him. Pallas is thoughtful 
wisdom, justice, and moderation, which alone can allay the 
conflict of reason and passion. 

Even the sleep of the Furies in the temple is symbolical; 
for only in the sanctuary, in the bosom of religion, can the 
fugitive find rest from the torments of conscience. Scarcely, 
however, has he ventured forth again into the world, when the 
image of his murdered mother appears, and again awakes them. 
The very speech of Clytemnestra betrays its symbolical im- 
port, as much as the attributes of the Furies, the serpents, and 
their sucking of blood. The same may be said of Apollo's 
aversion for them; in fact, this symbolical character runs 
through the whole. The equal cogency of the motives for and 
against the deed is denoted by the equally divided votes of 
the judges. And if at last a sanctuary within the Athenian 



iESCHYLUS, A PYTHAGOREAN. 89 

territory is offered to the softened Furies, this is as much as to 
say that reason is not everywhere to enforce its principles 
against involuntary instinct, that there are in the human mind 
certain boundaries which are not to be passed, and all contact 
with which even every person possessed of a true sentiment of 
reverence will cautiously avoid, if he would preserve peace 
within. 

So much for the deep philosophical meaning which we need 
not wonder to find in this poet, who, according to the testimony 
of Cicero, was a Pythagorean, ^schylus had also political 
views. Foremost of these was the design of rendering A thens 
illustrious. Delphi was the religious centre of Greece, and yet 
how far it is thrown into the shade by him ! It can shelter 
Orestes, indeed, from the first onset of persecution, but not 
afford him a complete liberation ; this is reserved for the land 
of law and humanity. But, a further, and in truth, his principal 
object was to recommend as essential to the welfare of Athens 
the Areopagus*, an uncorruptible yet mild tribunal, in which 
the white ballot of Pallas given in favour of the accused is an 
invention which does honour to the humanity of the Athenians. 
The poet shows how a portentous series of crimes led to an 
institution fraught with blessings to humanity. 

But it will be asked, are not extrinsic aims of this kind 
prejudicial to the pure poetical impressions which the compo- 
sition ought to produce? Most undoubtedly, if pursued in the 
manner in which other poets, and especially Euripides, have 

* I do not find that this aim has ever been expressly ascribed to 
-Slschylus by any ancient writer. It is, however, too plain to be mis- 
taken, and is revealed especially in the speech of Pallas, beginning with 
the 680th verse. It agrees, moreover, with the account, that in the very 
year when the piece was represented, (Olymp. Ixxx. 1.) a certain Ephialtes 
excited the people against the Areopagus, which was the best guardian of 
the old and more austere constitution, and kept democratic extravagance 
in check. This Ephialtes was murdered one night by an unknown hand. 
-^schylus received the first prize in the theatrical games, but we know 
that he left Athens immediately afterwards, and passed his remaining 
years in Sicily. It is possible that, although the theatrical judges did him 
justice, he might be held in aversion by the populace, and that this in- 
duced him, without any express sentence of banishment, to leave his native 
city. The story of the sight of the terrible chorus of Furies having 
thrown children into mortal convulsions, and caused women to miscarry, 
appears to be fabulous. A poet would hardly have been crowned, who 
had been the occasion of profaning the festival by such occurrences. 



90 THE ORESTEIA : ITS SUBLIME CONCEPTION. 

followed them out. But in ^schylus the aim is subservient 
to the poetry, rather than the poetry to the aim. He does 
not lower himself to a circumscribed reality, but, on the con- 
trary, elevates it to a higher sphere, and connects it with the 
most sublime conceptions. 

In the Oresteia (for so the trilogy or three connected pieces 
was called,) we certainly possess one of the sublimest poems 
that ever was conceived by the imagination of man, and, pro- 
bably, the ripest and most perfect of all the productions of his 
genius. The date of the composition of them confirms this 
supposition : for ^schylus was at least sixty years of age 
when he brought these dramas on the stage, the last with 
which he ever competed for the prize at Athens. But, in- 
deed, every one of his pieces that has come down to us, is 
remarkable either for displaying some peculiar property of 
the poet, or, as indicative of the step in art at which he stood 
at the date of its composition. 

I am disposed to consider the Suppliants one of his more 
early works. It probably belonged to a trilogy, and stood 
between two other tragedies on the same subject, the names of 
which are still preserved, namely the Egi/pticms and the 
Danaidce. The first, we may suppose, described the flight of 
the Danaidce from Egypt to avoid the detested marriage with 
their cousins ; the second depicts the protection which they 
sought and obtained in Argos ; while the third would contain 
the murder of the husbands who were forced upon them. We 
are disposed to view the two first pieces as single acts, intro- 
ductory to the tragical action which properly commences in the 
last. But the tragedy of the Suppliants, while it is complete in 
itself, and forms a whole, is yet, when viewed in this position, 
defective, since it is altogether without reference to or connexion 
with what precedes and what follows. In the Sup>pliants the 
chorus not only takes a j)art in the action, as in the Eume- 
nides, but it is even the principal character that attracts and 
commands our interest. This cast of the tragedy is neither 
favourable for the display of peculiarity of character, nor the 
exciting emotion by the play of powerful passions; or, to 
speak in the language of Grecian art, it is unfavourable both 
to ethos and to p)athos. The chorus has but one voice and 
one soul: to have marked the disposition common to fifty 
young women (for the chorus of Danaidce certainly amounted 



THE SUPPLIANTS EGYPTIANS — DANAID^. 91 

to this number,) by any exclusive peculiarities, would have 
been absurd in the very nature of things : over and above the 
common features of humanity such a multitude could only be 
painted with those common to their sex, their age, and, per- 
haps, those of their nation. In respect to the last, the inten- 
tion of ^schylus is more conspicuous than his success : he lays 
a great stress on the foreign descent of the Danaidce; but this 
he does but assert of them, without allowing the foreign cha- 
racter to be discovered in their words and discourse. The 
sentiments, resolutions, and actions of a multitude, and yet 
manifested with such uniformity, and conceived and executed 
like the movements of a regular army, have scarcely the ap- 
pearance of proceeding freely and directly from the inmost 
being. And, on the other hand, we take a much stronger 
interest in the situations and fortunes of a single individual 
with whose whole character we have become intimately ac- 
quainted, than in a multitude of uniformly repeated impres- 
sions massed as it were together. We have more than reason 
to doubt whether ^schylus treated the fable of the third 
piece in such a way that Hypermnestra, the only one of 
the Danaid(je who is allowed to form an exception from the 
rest, became, with her compassion or her love, the principal 
object of the dramatic interest: here, again, probably, his 
chief object was by expressing, in majestic choral songs, the 
complaints, the wishes, the cares, and supplications of the 
whole sisterhood, to exhibit a kind of social solemnity of action 
and suffering. 

In the same manner, in the Seven hefore Thehes, the king 
and the messenger, whose speeches occupy the greatest part 
of the piece, speak more in virtue of their office than as inter- 
preters of their own personal feelings. The description of the 
assault with which the city is threatened, and of the seven 
leaders who, like heaven-storming giants, have sworn its de- 
struction, and who, in the emblems borne on their shields, dis- 
play their arrogance, is an epic subject clothed in the j)omp of 
tragedy. This long and ascending series of preparation is 
every way worthy the one agitating moment at which Eteo- 
eles, who has hitherto displayed the utmost degree of pru- 
dence and firmness, and stationed", at each gate, a patriotic 
hero to confront each of the insolent foes ; when the seventh 
is described to him as no other than Poly n ices, the author of 



92 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES — ^^SCHYLUS. 

the whole threatened calamity, hurried away by the Erinnys 
of a father's curse, insists on becoming himself his antagonist, 
and, notwithstanding all the entreaties of the chorus, with the 
clear consciousness of inevitable death, rushes headlong to the 
fratricidal strife. War, in itself, is no subject for tragedy, 
and the poet hurries us rapidly from the ominous preparation 
to the fatal moment of decision : the city is saved, the two 
competitors for the throne fall by each other's hands, and the 
whole is closed by their funeral dirge, sung conjointly by the 
sisters and a chorus of Theban virgins. It is worthy of remark, 
that Antigone's determination to inter her brother, notwith- 
standing the prohibition with which Sophocles opens his own 
piece, which he names after her, is interwoven with the con- 
clusion of this play, a circumstance which, as in the case 
of the Choephorce, immediately connects it with a new and 
further development of the tragic story. 

I wish I could persuade myself that iEschylus composed the 
Fersians to comply with the wish of Hiero, King of Syracuse, 
who was desirous vividly to realize the great events of the 
Persian war. Such is the substance of one tradition; but 
according to another, the piece had been previously exhibited 
in Athens. We have already alluded to this drama, which, 
both in point of choice of subject, and the manner of handling 
it, is undoubtedly the most imperfect of all the tragedies of 
this poet that we possess. Scarcely has the vision of Atossa 
raised our expectation in the commencement, when the whole 
catastrophe immediately opens on us with the arrival of the 
first messenger, and no further progress is even imaginable. 
But although not a legitimate drama, we may still consider it 
as a proud triumphal hymn of liberty, clothed in soft and un- 
ceasing lamentations of kindred and subjects over the fallen 
majesty of the ambitious despot. With great judgment, both 
here and in the Seven before Tkehes, the poet describes the 
issue of the war, not as accidental, which is almost always the 
case in Homer, but (for in tragedy there is no place for acci- 
dent,) as the result of overweening infatuation on the one 
hand, and wise moderation on the other. 

The Prometheus Bound held also a middle place between 
two others — the Fire-bringing FrometJieus and the Frome- 
tlieus Unbound, if we dare reckon the first, which, without 
question, was a satiric drama, a part of a trilogy. A con- 



THE PERSIANS THE BOUND PROMETHEUS. 93 

siderable fragment of the Prometheus Unbound has been pre- 
served to us in a Latin translation by Attius. 

The Prometheus Bound is the representation of constancy 
under suffering, and that the never-ending suffering of a god. 
Exiled in its scene to a naked rock on the shore of the 
earth-encircling ocean, this drama still embraces the world, 
the Olympus of the gods, and the earth, the abode of 
mortals; all as yet scarcely reposing in security above the 
dread abyss of the dark primaeval pov/ers — the Titans. The 
idea of a self-devoting divinity has been mysteriously incul- 
cated in many religions, in dim foreboding of the true ; here, 
however, it appears in most fearful contrast to the consolations 
of Revelation. For Prometheus does not suffer from any 
understanding with the power which rules the world, but in 
atonement for his disobedience to that power, and his disobe- 
dience consists in nothing but the attempt to give perfection 
to the human race. He is thus an image of human nature 
itself; endowed with an unblessed foresight and riveted to a 
narrow existence, without a friend or ally, and with nothing 
to oppose to the combined and inexorable powers of nature, 
but an unshaken will and the consciousness of her own lofty 
aspirations. The other productions of the Greek Tragedians 
are so many tragedies ; but this I might say is Tragedy her- 
self : her purest spirit revealed with all the annihilating and 
overpowering force of its j&rst^ and as yet unmitigated, aus- 
terity. 

' There is little of external action in this piece. Prometheus 
inierely suffers and resolves from the beginning to the end; 
'and his sufferings and resolutions are always the same. But 
Ithe poet has, in a masterly manner, contrived to introduce 
'variety and progress into that which in itself was deter- 
'minately fixed, and has in the objects with which he has 
'surrounded him, given us a scale for the measurement of the 
matchless power of his sublime Titan. First the silence of 
Prometheus, while he is chained down under the harsh in- 
spection of Strength and Force, whose threats serve only to 
excite a useless compassion in Vulcan, who is nevertheless 
'forced to carry them into execution; then his solitary com- 
plainings, the arrival of the womanly tender ocean nymphs, 
Whose kind but disheartening sympathy stimulates him to give 
Teer vent to his feelings, to relate the causes of his fall, and 



94 DRAMAS OF J2SCHYLUS GENERALLY. 

to reveal the future, though with prudent reserve he reveals 
it only in part; the visit of the ancient Oceanus, a kindred 
god of the Titanian race^ who, under the pretext of a zealous 
attachment to his cause, counsels suhmission to Jupiter, and 
is therefore dismissed with proud contempt; next comes Io,the 
frenzy-driven wanderer, a victim of the same tyranny as Pro- 
metheus himself suffers under: to her he predicts the wander- 
ings to which she is still doomed, and the fate which at last 
awaits her, which, in some degree, is connected with his own, 
as from her blood, after the lapse of many ages, his deliverer 
is to spring; then the appearance of Mercury, as the mes- 
senger of the universal tyrant, who, with haughty menaces, 
commands him to disclose the secret which is to ensure the 
safety of Jupiter's throne against all the malice of fate and 
fortune ; and, lastly, before Prometheus has well declared his 
refusal, the yawning of the earth, which, amidst thunder and 
lightning, storms and earthquake, engulfs both him and the 
rock to which he is chained in the abyss of the nether world. 
The triumph of subjection was never perhaps more gloriously 
celebrated, and we have difficulty in conceiving how the poet 
in the Prometheus Unbound could have sustained himself on 
the same height of elevation. 

In the dramas of ^schylus we have one of many examples 
that, in art as well as in nature, gigantic productions precede 
those that evince regularity of proportion, which again in 
their turn decline gradually into littleness and insignijScance, 
and that poetry in her earliest appearance attaches itself 
closely to the sanctities of religion, whatever may be the 
form which the latter assumes among the various races 
of men. 

A saying of the poet, which has been recorded, proves that 
he endeavoured to maintain this elevation, and purposely 
avoided all artificial polish, which might lower him from 
this godlike sublimity. His brothers urged him to write a 
new Pssan. He answered : " The old one of Tynnichus is 
the best, and his compared with this, fare as the new statues 
do beside the old; for the latter, with all their simplicity, are 
considered divine ; while the new, with all the care bestowed 
on their execution, are indeed admired, but bear much less 
of the impression of divinity." In religion, as in everything 
else, he carried his boldness to the utmost limits ; and thus he 



CHARACTER OF STYLE. 95 

even came to be accused of having in one of his pieces dis- 
closed the Eleusinean mysteries, and was only acquitted on 
the intercession of his brother Aminias, who bared in sight 
of the judges the wounds which he had received in the battle 
of Salamis. He perhaps believed that in the communication 
of the poetic feeling was contained the initiation into the 
mysteries, and that nothing was in this way revealed to any 
one who was not worthy of it. 

In ^schylus the tragic style is as yet imperfect, and not 
unfrequently runs into either unmixed epic or lyric. It is 
often abrupt, irregular, and harsh. To compose more regular 
and skilful tragedies than those of -^schylus was by no 
means difficult; but in the more than mortal grandeur which 
he displayed, it was impossible that he should ever be sur- 
passed ; and even Sophocles, his younger and more fortunate 
rival, did not in this respect equal him. The latter, in speak- 
ing of iEschylus, gave a proof that he was himself a thought- (^ 
ful artist : " /Eschylus does what is right without knowing ) 
it." These few simple words exhaust the whole of what we \ 
understand by the phrase, powerful genius working uncon- 



96 SOPHOCLES : his birth — ^YOFTH. 



LECTURE VII. 

Life and Political Character of Sophocles — Character of his different 
Tragedies. 

The birth of Sopliocles was nearly at an equal distance 
between that of his predecessor and that of Euripides, so that 
he was about half a life-time from each : but on this point all 
the authorities do not coincide. He was, however, during the 
greatest part of his life the contemporary of both. He 
frequently contended for the ivy-wreath of tragedy with 
^schylus, and he outlived Euripides, who, however, also 
attained to a good old age. To speak in the spirit of the 
ancient religion, it seems that a beneficent Providence wished 
in this individual to evince to the human race the dignity 
and blessedness of its lot, by endowing him with every 
divine gift, -with all that can adorn and elevate the mind and 
the heart, and crowning him with every imaginable blessing 
of this life. Descended from rich and honourable j)arents, 
and born a free citizen of the most enlightened state of 
Greece ; — there were birth, necessary condition, and founda- 
tion. Beauty of person and of mind, and the uninterruped 
^njojnnent of both in the utmost perfection, to the extreme 
term of human existence ; a most choice and finished educa- 
tion in gymnastics and the musical arts, the former so im- 
portant in the development of the bodily powers, and the 
latter in the communication of harmony; the sweet bloom of 
youth, and the ripe fruit of age ; the possession of and unbroken 
enjoyment of poetry and art, and the exercise of serene 
wisdom; love and respect among his fellow citizens, renown 
abroad, and the countenance and favour of the gods: these 
are the general features of the life of this pious and virtuous 
poet. It would seem as if the gods, to whom, and to Bacchus 
in particular, as the giver of all joy, and the civilizer of the 
human race, he devoted himself at an early age by the com- 



LIFE AND POLITICAL CHARACTER. 97 

position of tragical dramas for his festivals, had wished to 
confer immortality on him, so long did they delay the hour 
of his death; but as this could not be, they loosened him 
from life as gently as was possible, that he might imper- 
ceptibly change one immortality for another, the long dura- 
tion of his earthly existence for the imperishable vitality of 
his name. When a youth of sixteen, he was selected, on 
account of his beauty, to dance (playing the while, after the 
Greek manner, on the lyre) at the head of the chorus of youths 
who, after the battle of Salamis (in which ^Eschylus fought, 
and which he has so nobly described), executed the Psean 
round the trophy erected on that occasion. Thus then the 
beautiful season of his youthful bloom coincided with the 
most glorious epoch of the Athenian people. He held the 
rank of general as colleague with Pericles and Thucydides, 
and, when arrived at a more advanced age, was elected to 
the priesthood of a native hero. In his twenty-fifth year he 
began to exhibit tragedies; twenty times was he victorious; 
he often gained the second place, but never was he ranked 
so low as in the third. In this career he proceeded with in- 
creasing success till he had passed his ninetieth year; and 
some of his greatest works were even the fruit of a still later 
period. There is a story of an accusation being brought 
against him by one or more of his elder sons, of having 
become childish from age, and of being incapable of managing 
his own afi'airs. An alleged partiality for a grandson by a 
second wife is said to have been the motive of the charge. 
In his defence he contented himself with reading to his judges 
his (Edipus at Colonos, which he had then just composed (or, 
according to others, only the magnificent chorus in it, wherein 
he sings the praises of Colonos, his birth-place,) and the 
astonished judges, without farther consultation, conducted 
him in triumph to his house. If it be true that the second 
(Edipics was written at so late an age, as from its mature 
serenity and total freedom from the impetuosity and violence 
of youth we have good reason to conclude that it actually 
was, it affords us a pleasing picture of an old age at once 
amiable and venerable. Although the varying accounts 
of his death have a fabulous look, they all coincide in this, 
and alike convey this same purport, that he departed life 
without a struggle, while employed in his art, or something 

G 



98 SOPHOCLES COMPARED WITH ^SCHYLUS. 

connected with it, and that, like an old swan of Apollo, he 
breathed out his life in song. The story also of the Lacede- 
monian general, who having entrenched the burviug-ground 
of the poet's ancestors, and being twice warned by Bacchus 
in a vision to allow Sophocles to be there interred, dispatched 
a herald to the Athenians on the subject, I consider as true, 
as well as a number of other circumstances, which serve to 
set in a strong light the illustrious reverence in which his 
name was held. In calling him virtuous and pious, I used 
the words in his ow^i sense ; for although his works breathe 
the real character of ancient grandeur, gracefulness, and 
simplicity, he, of all the Grecian poets, is also the one 
whose feelings bear the strongest affinity to the spirit of our 
religion. 

One gift alone was denied to him by nature : a voice 
attuned to song. He could only call forth and direct the har- 
monious efiusions of other voices ; he was therefore compelled 
to depart from the hitlierto established practice for the poet to 
act a part in his own pieces. Once only did he make his 
appearance on the stage in the character of the blind singer 
Thamyris (a very characteristic trait) playing ou the cithara. 
As ^schylus, who raised tragic poetry from its rude 
beginnings to the dignity of the Cothurnus, was his prede- 
cessor; the historical relation in which he stood to him 
enabled Sophocles to profit by the essays of that original 
master, so that ^^schylus appea,rs as the rough designer, and 
Sophocles as the iinisher and successor. The more artificial 
construction of Sophocles' dramas is easily perceived: the 
greater limitation of the chorus in proportion to the dialogue, 
the smoother polish of the rhythm, and the purer Attic 
diction, the introduction of a greater number of charac- 
ters, the richer complication of the fable, the multiplication 
of incidents, a higher degree of development, the more 
tranquil dwelling upon all the momenta of the action, and 
the more striking theatrical efi'ect allowed to decisive ones, 
the more perfect rounding off of the v/hole, even considered 
from a merely external point of view. But he excelled 
-^schylus in something still more essential, and proved him- 
self deserving of the good fortune of having such a preceptor, 
and of being allowed to enter into competition in the same 
field with hira: I mean the harmonious perfection of his 



SOPHOCLES: FERTILITY OF HIS MIND. 99 

mind, whidi enabled him spontaneously to satisfy every 
requisition of the laws of beauty, a mind whose free impulse 
was accompanied by the most clear consciousness. To sur- 
pass /?5^schylus in boldness of conception was perhaps imj^os- 
sible : I am inclined, however, to believe that is only because 
of his wisdom and moderation that Sophocles appears less 
bold, since he always goes to work with the greatest energy, 
and perhaps with even a more sustained earnestness, like a 
man who knows the extent of his powers, and is determined, 
when he does not exceed them, to stand up with the greater 
confidence for his rights'^. As ^schylus delights in trans- 
porting us to the convulsions of the primary world of the 
Titans, Sophocles, on the other hand, never avails himself of 
divine interposition except where it is absolutely necessary; 
he formed men, according to the general confession of anti- 
quity, better, that is, not more moral and exempt from error, 
but more beautiful and noble than they really are ; and while 
he took every thing in the most human sense, he was at the 
same time open to its higher significance. According to all 
appearance he was also more temperate than ^schylus in his 
use of scenic ornaments; displaying perhaps more of taste 
and chastened beauty, but not attempting the same colossal 
magnificence. 

To characterize the native sweetness and gracefulness so 
eminent in this poet, the ancients gave him the appellation of 
the Attic bee. Whoever is thoroughly imbued with the feel- 
ing of this peculiarity may flatter himself that a sense for 
ancient art has arisen within him; for the afi'ected sentimen- 

* This idea has been so happily expressed by the greatest genius per- 
haps of the last centun^, that the translator hopes he wUl be forgiven for 
here transcribing the passage: "I can truly say that, poor and unknown 
as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my 
works, as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their 
favour. It ever was my opinion, that the mistakes and blunders both in 
a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands daily 
guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves. To knov/ myself, had 
been all along my constant study. I weighed myself alone ; I balanced 
myself with others ; I watched every means of information to see how 
much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet ; I studied assiduously 
nature's design in my formation — whei-e the lights and shades in my cha- 
racter were intended." — Letter from Bums to Dr. Moore, in Currie's 
Life. — Trans. 

G 2 



ES. ■ 

cientsBI 



100 SOPHOCLES: HIS TRAGEDIES — PECULIAR EXCELLENCIES 

tality of the present day, far from coinciding with the anciei 
in this opinion, would in the tragedies of Sophocles, both in 
respect of the representation of bodily sufierings, and in the 
sentiments and structure, find much that is insupportably 
austere. 

When we consider the great fertility of Sophocles, for 
according to some he wrote a hundred and thirty pieces (of 
which, however, seventeen were pronounced spurious by 
Aristophanes the grammarian), and eighty according to the 
most moderate account, little, it must be owned, has come 
down to us, for we have only seven of them. Chance, how- 
ever, has so far favoured us, that in these seven pieces we find 
several which were held by the ancients as his greatest works, 
the A ntiff one, for example, the Electra, and the two on the 
subject of (Edipus; and these have also come down to us 
tolerably free from mutilation and corruption in their text. 
The (Edijncs Ti/rannus, and the Philoctetes, have been gene- 
rally, but without good reason, preferred by modern critics to 
all the others: the first on account of the artifice of the 
plot, in which the dreadful catastrophe, which so powerfully 
excites the curiosity (a rare case in the Greek tragedies), 
is inevitably brought about by a succession of connected 
causes; the latter on account of the masterly display of 
character, the beautiful contrast observable in those of 
the three leading personages, and the simple structure of 
the piece, in which, with so few persons, everything pro- 
ceeds from the truest and most adequate motives. But 
the whole of the tragedies of Sophocles are separately re- 
splendent with peculiar excellencies. In A ntigone we have 
the purest display of feminine heroism; in Ajax the sense of 
manly honour in its full force ; in the Trachinice (or, as we 
should rather name it, the Dying Herctdes), the female levity 
of Dejanira is beautifully atoned for by her death, and the 
sufi'erings of Hercules are portrayed with suitable dignity; 
Electra is distinguished by energy and pathos; in (Edipus 
Coloneus there prevails a mild and gentle emotion, and over 
the whole piece is diffused the sweetest gracefulness. I Avill 
not undertake to weigh the respective merits of these pieces 
against each other: but I own I entertain a singular predi- 
lection for the last of them, because it appears to me the 
most expressive of the personal feelings of the poet himself. 



SOPHOCLES: ANALYSIS OF CEDIPUS. 101 

As tliis piece was written for the very purpose of throwing a 
lustre on Athens, and his own birth-place more particularly, 
lie appears to have laboured on it with a special love and 
affection. 

Ajax and Antigone, are usually the least understood. We 
cannot conceive how these pieces should run on so long after 
what we usually call the catastrophe. On this subject I shall 
hereafter offer a remark or two. 

Of all the fables of ancient mythology in which fate is 
made to play a conspicuous part, the story of QEdipus is per- 
haps the most ingenious ; but still many others, as, for in- 
stance, that of Niobe, which, without any complication of 
incidents, simply exhibit on a scale of colossal dimensions 
both of human arrogance, and its impending punishment 
from the gods, appear to me to be conceived in a grander 
style. The very intrigue which is involved in that of 
CEdipus detracts from its loftiness of character. Intrigue in 
the dramatic sense is a complication arising from the crossing 
of purposes and events, and this is found in a high degree in 
the fate of CEdipus, as all that is done by his parents or him- 
self in order to evade the predicted horrors, serves only to 
bring them on the more surely. But that which gives so 
grand and terrible a character to this drama, is the circum- 
stance which, however, is for the most part overlooked ; that 
to the very GEdipus who solved the riddle of the Sphinx 
relating to human life, his own life should remain so long an 
inextricable riddle, to be so awfully cleared up, when all was 
irretrievably lost. A striking picture of the arrogant pre- 
tension of human wisdom, which is ever right enough in its 
general principles, but does not enable the possessor to make 
the proper application to himself. 

Notwithstanding the severe conclusion of the first (Edipus 
we are so far reconciled to it by the violence, suspicion, and 
haughtiness in the character of CEdipus, that our feelings do 
not absolutely revolt at so horrible a fate. For this end, it 
was necessary thus far to sacrifice the character of CEdipus, 
who, however, raises himself in our estimation by his fatherly 
care and heroic zeal for the welfare of his people, that occa- 
sion him, by his honest search for the author of the crime, to 
accelerate his own destruction. It was also necessary, for 
the sake of contrast with his future misery, to exhibit him in 




102 ANALYSIS OP OEDIPUS CONTINUED. 

liis treatment of Tiresias aud Creon, in all tlie haughtiness of 
regal dignity. And, indeed, all his earlier proceedings evince, 
in some measure, the same suspiciousness and violence of 
character; the former, in his refusing to be quieted by the 
assurances of Polybos, when taunted with being a supj^ositious 
child, and the latter, in his bloody quarrel with Laius. The 
latter character he seems to have inherited from both his 
parents. The arrogant levity of Jocasta, vrhich induces her to 
deride the oracle as not confirmed by the event, the penalty 
of which she is so soon afterwards to inflict upon herself, 
was not indeed inherited by her son; he is, on the contrary, 
conspicuous throughout for the purity of his intentions; and 
his care and anxiety to escape from the predicted crime, 
added naturally to the poignancy of his despair, when he 
found that he had nevertheless been overtaken by it. Awful 
indeed is his blindness in not perceiving the truth when it 
was, as it were, brought directly home to him; as, for instance, 
when he puts the question to Jocasta, How did Laius look? 
and she answers he had become gray-haired, otherwise in 
appearance he was not unlike CEdipus. This is also another 
feature of her levity, that she should not have been struck 
with the resemblance to her husband, a circumstance that 
might have led her to recognize him as her son. Thus a 
close analysis of the piece will evince the utmost propriety 
and significance of every portion of it. As, however, it is 
customary to extol the correctness of Sophocles, and to boast 
more especially of the strict observance of probability which 
prevails throughout this CEdipus, I must here remark that 
this very piece is a proof how, on this subject, the ancient 
artists followed very different principles from those of modern 
critics. For, according to our way of thinking, nothing could 
be more improbable than that G^dipus should, so long, have 
forborne to inquire into the circumstances of the death of 
Laius, and that the scars on his feet, and even the name 
which he bore, should never have excited the curiosity of 
Jocasta, &c. But the ancients did not produce their works 
of art for calculating and prosaic understandings; aud an 
improbability Avhich, to be found out, required dissection, and 
did not exist within the matters of the representation itself, 
was to them none at all. 

The diversity of character of iEschylus and Sophocles is 



SOPHOCLES — ^SCHYLUS. 103 

iiowliere more conspicuous than in the Eumenides and the 
Q^dipus Coloneus, as both these pieces were composed with 
the same aim. This aim was to glorify Athens as the sacred 
abode of law and humanity, on whose soil the crimes of the 
hero families of other countries might, by a higher mediation, 
be at last propitiated; while an ever-during prosperity was 
predicted to the Athenian people. The patriotic and liberty- 
breathing ^schylus has recourse to a judicial, and the pious 
Sophocles to a religious, procedure ; even the consecration of 
(Edipus in death. Bent down by the consciousness of inevit 
able crimes, and lengthened misery, his honour is, as it 
were, cleared up by the gods themselves, as if desirous of 
showing that, in the terrible example which they made of 
him, they had no intention of visiting him in particular, but 
merely wished to give a solemn lesson to the whole human 
race. Sophocles, to whom the whole of life was one continued 
worship of the gods, delighted to throw all possible honour 
on its last moments as if a more solemn festival; and asso- 
ciated it with emotions very different from what the thought 
of mortality is in general calculated to excite. That the 
tortured and exhausted QEdipus should at last find peace and 
repose in the grove of the Furies, in the very spot from which 
all other mortals fled with aversion and horror, he whose 
misfortune consisted in having done a deed at which all men 
shudder, unconsciously and without warning of any inward 
feeling; in this there is a profound and mysterious meaning. 

-5^schylus has given us in the person of Pallas a more 
majestic representation of the Attic cultivation, prudence, 
moderation, mildness, and magnanimity; but Sophocles, who 
delighted to draw all that is godlike within the sphere of 
humanity, has, in his Theseus, given a more delicate develop- 
ment of all these same things. Whoever is desirous of gaining- 
an accurate idea of Grecian heroism, as contrasted with the 
Barbarian, would do well to consider this character with 
attention. 

In iEschylus, before the victim of persecution can be 
delivered, and the land can participate in blessings, the 
infernal horror of the Furies congeals the spectator's blood, 
and makes his hair stand on end, and the whole rancour of 
these goddesses of rage is exhausted: after this the transi- 
tion to their peaceful retreat is the more wonderful; the 



104 SOPHOCLES: ANTIGONE — HIS PORTRAITURE. 

whole human race seems, as it were, delivered from their 
power. In Sophocles, however, they do not ever appear, but 
are kept altogether in the background; and they are never 
mentioned by their own name, but always alkided to by some 
softening euphemism. But this very obscurity, so exactly befit- 
ting these daughters of night, and the very distance at which 
they are kept, are calculated to excite a silent horror in which 
the bodily senses have no part. The clothing the grove of the 
Furies with all the charms of a southern spring completes 
the sweetness of the poem; and were I to select from his own 
tragedies an emblem of the poetry of Sophocles, I should 
describe it as a sacred grove of the dark goddesses of fate, in 
which the laurel, the olive, and the vine, are always green. 
and the song of the nightingale is for ever heard. 

Two of the pieces of Sophocles refer, to what in the Greek 
way of thinking, are the sacred rights of the dead, and the 
solemn importance of burial; in Antigone the whole of the 
action hinges on this, and in Ajax it forms the only satisfac- 
tory conclusion of the piece. 

The ideal of the female character in Antigone is charac- 
terized by great austerity, and it is sufficient of itself to put 
an end to all the seductive representations of Grecian soft- 
ness, which of late have been so universally current. Her 
indignation at Ismene's refusal to take part in her daring 
resolution; the manner in which she afterwards repulses 
Ismene, when repenting of her former weakness, she begs to 
be allowed to share her heroic sister's death, borders on harsh- 
ness; both her silence, and then her invectives against Creon, 
by which she provokes him to execute his tyrannical threats, 
display the immovable energy of manly courage. The poet 
has, however, discovered the secret of painting the loving heart 
of woman in a single line, when to the assertion of Creon, 
that Polynices was an enemy to his country, she replies : 
My love shall go with thine, but not my hate*. 

* This is the version of Franklin, hut it does not convey the meaning of 
the original, and I am not aware that the English language is sufficiently 
flexible to admit of an exact translation. The German, which, though far 
inferior to the Greek in harmony, is little behind in flexibihty, has in this 
respect great advantage over the Enghsh; and Schlegel's ^^ nicht mitzu- 
hassen, mitzuliehen bin ich da," represents exactly Ovrot avvevdeiv dXKa 
crvfx(j>tX€iv €(pvv. — Trans. 



SOPHOCLES: ANTIGONE CREON. 105 

Moreover, slie puts a constraint on lier feelings only so long 
as by giving vent to them, she might make her firmness of 
purpose appear equivocal. When, however, she is being led 
forth to inevitable death, she pours forth her soul in the ten- 
derest and most touching wailings over her hard and untimely 
fate, and does not hesitate, she, the modest virgin, to mourn 
the loss of nuptials, and the unenjoyed bliss of marriage. 
Yet she never in a single syllable betrays any inclination for 
HsDmon, and does not even mention the name of that amiable 
youth*. After such heroic determination, to have shown 
that any tie still bound her to existence, would have been a 
weakness; but to relinquish without one sorrowful regret 
those common enjoyments with which the gods have enriched 
this life, would have ill accorded with her devout sanctity of 
mind. 

On a first view the chorus in Antigone may appear weak, 
acceding, as it does, at once, without opposition to the tyran- 
nical commands of Creon, and without even attempting to 
make the slightest representation in behalf of the young 
heroine. But to exhibit the determination and the deed of 
Antigone in their full glory, it was necessary that they should 
stand out quite alone, and that she should have no stay or 
support. Moreover, the very submissiveness of the chorus 
increases our impression of the irresistible nature of the royal 
commands. So, too, was it necessary for it to mingle with 
its concluding addresses to Antigone the most painful recol- 
lections, that she might drain the full cup of earthly sorrows. 
The case is very different in Electra, where the chorus appro- 
priately takes an interest in the fate of the two principal 
characters, and encourages them in the execution of their 
design, as the moral feelings are divided as to its legitimacy, 
whereas there is no such conflict in Antigone's case, who had 
nothing to deter her from her purpose but mere external 
fears. 

After the fulfilment of the deed, and the infliction of its 
penalties, the arrogance of Creon still remains to be corrected, 
and the death of Antigone to be avenged; nothing less than 

* Barthelemy asserts the contrary; but the line to which he refers, ac- 
cording to the more correct manuscripts, and even according to the context, 
belongs to Ismene. 



106 ' SOPHOCLES. A J AX. 



■ 



the destruction of his whole family, and his own despair, 
could be a sufficient atonement for the sacrifice of a life so 
costly. We have therefore the king's wife, who had not 
even been named before, brought at last on the stage, that 
she may hear the misfortunes of her family, and put an end 
to her own existence. To Grecian feelings it would have 
been impossible to consider the poem as properly concluding 
with the death of Antigone, without its penal retribution. 

The case is the same in Ajax. His arrogance, which was 
punished with a degrading madness, is atoned for by the deep 
shame which at length drives him even to self-murder. The 
persecution of the unfortunate man must not, however, be 
carried farther; when, therefore, it is in contemplation to 
dishonour his very corpse by the refusal of interment, even 
Ulysses interferes. He owes the honours of burial to that 
Ulysses whom in life he had looked upon as his mortal enemy, 
and to whom, in the dreadful introductory scene, Pallas shows, 
in the example of the delirious Ajax, the nothingness of 
man. Thus Ulysses appears as the personification of moder- 
ation, which, if it had been possessed by Ajax, would have 
prevented his fall. 

Self-murder is of frequent occurrence in ancient mythology, 
at least as adapted to tragedy; but it generally takes place, 
^f not in a state of insanity, yet in a state of agitation, after 
some sudden calamity which leaves no room for consideration. 
Such self-murders as those of Jocasta, Hsemon, Eurydice, and 
lastly of Dejanira, appear merely in the light of a subordinate 
appendage- in the tragical pictures of Sophocles; but the 
suicide of Ajax is a cool determination, a free action, and of 
sufficient importance to become the principal subject of the 
piece. It is not the last fatal crisis of a slow mental malady, 
as is so often the case in these more efi'eminate modern times ; 
still less is it that more theoretical disgust of life, founded on 
a conviction of its worthlessness, which induced so many of 
the later Romans, on Epicurean as well as Stoical principles, 
to put an end to their existence. It is not through any 
unmanly despondency that Ajax is unfaithful to his rude 
heroism. His delirium is over, as well as his first comfortless 
feelings upon awaking from it; and it is not till after the 
complete return of consciousness, and when he has had time 
to measure the depth of the abyss into which, hj a divine 



SOPHOCLES: PHILOCTETES. 107 

destiny, Lis overweening liaughtiness lias plunged him, when 
he contemplates his situation, and feels it ruined beyond 
remedy : — his honour wounded by the refusal of the arms of 
Achilles; and the outburst of his vindictive rage wasted in 
his infatuation on defenceless flocks ; himself, after a long and 
reproachless heroic career, a source of amusement to his ene- 
mies, an object of derision and abomination to the Greeks, and 
to his honoured father, — should he thus return to him — a 
disgrace : after reviewing all this, he decides agreeably to his 
own motto, " gloriously to live or gloriously to die," that the 
latter course alone remains open to him. Even the dissimu- 
lation, — the first, perhaps, that he ever practised, by which, 
to prevent the execution of his purpose from being disturbed, 
he pacifies his comrades, must be considered as the fruit of 
greatness of soul. He appoints Tencer guardian to his infant 
boy, the future consolation of his own bereaved parents ; and, 
like Cato, dies not before he has arranged the concerns of all 
who belong to him. As Antigone in her womanly tender- 
ness, so even he in his wild manner, seems in his last speech 
to feel the majesty of that light of the sun from which he is 
departing for ever. His rude courage disdains compassion, 
and therefore excites it the more powerfully. What a picture 
of awaking from the tumult of passion, when the tent opens 
and in the midst of the slaughtered herds he sits on the ground 
bewailing himself ! 

As Ajax, in the feeling of inextinguishable shame, forms 
the violent resolution of throwing away life, Philoctetes, on 
the other hand, bears its wearisome load during long years of 
misery with the most enduring patience. If Ajax is honoured 
by his despair, Philoctetes is equally ennobled by his con- 
stancy. When the instinct of self-preservation comes into 
collision with no moral impulse, it naturally exhibits itself 
in all its strength. Nature has armed with this instinct 
whatever is possessed of the breath of life, and the vigour 
with which every hostile attack on existence is repelled is 
the strongest proof of its excellence. In the presence, it is 
true, of that band of men by which he had been abandoned, 
and if he must depend on their superior power, Philoctetes 
would no more have wished for life than did Ajax. But he is 
alone with nature; he quails not before the frightful aspect 
which she exhibits to him, and still clings even to the maternal 



1©8 SOPHOCLES: rniLOCTETES. 

bosom of the all-nourisliing earth. Exiled on a desert island, 
tortured by an incurable ground, solitary and helpless as he 
is, his bow procures him food from the birds of the forest, the 
rock yields him soothing herbs, the fountain supj)lies a fresh 
beverage, his cave affords him a cool shelter in summer, in 
winter he is warmed by the mid-day sun, or a fire of kindled 
boughs; even the raging attacks of his pain at length exhaust 
themselves, and leave him in a refreshing sleep. Alas! it is 
the artificial refinements, the oppressive burden of a relaxing 
and deadening superfluity which render man indifferent to the 
value of life : when it is stripped of all foreign appendages, 
though borne down with sufferings so that the naked existence 
alone remains, still will its sweetness flow from the heart at 
every pulse through all the veins. IMiserable man ! ten long 
years has he struggled ; and yet he still lives, and clings to 
life and hope. What force of truth is there in all this ! What, 
however, most moves us in behalf of Philoctetes is, that he, 
who by an abuse of power had been cast out from society, 
when it again approaches him is exposed by it to a second 
and still more dangerous evil, that of falsehood. The anxiety 
excited in the mind of the spectator lest Philoctetes should 
be deprived of his last means of subsistence, his bow, would 
be too painful, did he not from the beginning entertain a sus- 
picion that the open-hearted and straight-forward Neopto- 
lemus will not be able to maintain to the end the character 
which, so much against his will, he has assumed. Not without 
reason after this deception does Philoctetes turn away from 
mankind to those inanimate companions to t\ hich the instinc- 
tive craving for society had attached him. He calls on the 
island and its volcanoes to witness this fresh wrong ; he 
believes that his beloved bow feels pain in being taken from 
him ; and at length he takes a melancholy leave of his hos- 
pitable cavern, the fountains and the wave- washed cliffs, from 
which he so often looked in vain upon the ocean: so inclined 
to love is the uncorrupted mind of man. 

Respecting the bodily sufferings of Philoctetes and the 
manner of representing them., Lessing has in his Laocoon 
declared himself against Winkelraann, and Herder again has 
in the Silvw Critica? (Kritische Walder) contradicted Lessing. 
Both the two last writers have made many excellent observa- 
tions on the piece, although we must allow with Herder, that 



SOPHOCLES: THE TRACHINIJS. 109 

Winkelmann was correct in affirming that the Philoctetes of 
Sophocles, like Laocoon in the celebrated group, suffers with 
the suppressed agony of an heroic soul never altogether over- 
come by his pain. 

The Tracliiniw appears to me so very inferior to the other 
pieces of Sophocles which have reached us, that I could wish 
there were some warrant for supposing that this tragedy was 
composed in the age, indeed, and in the school of Sophocles, 
perhaps by his son lophon, and that it was by mistake attri- 
buted to the father. There is much both in the structure and 
plan, and in the style of the piece, calculated to excite sus- 
picion; and many critics have remarked that the introductory 
soliloquy of Dejanira, which is wholly uncalled-for, is very 
unlike the general character of Sophocles' prologues: and 
although this poet's usual rules of art are observed on the 
whole, yet it is very superficially; no where can we discern 
in it the profound mind of Sophocles. But as no writer 
of antiquity appears to have doubted its authenticity, while 
Cicero even quotes from it the complaint of Hercules, as from 
an indisputable work of Sophocles, we are compelled to con- 
tent ourselves with the remark, that in this one instance the 
tragedian has failed to reach his usual elevation. 

This brings us to the consideration of a general question, 
which, in the examination of the works of Euripides, will still 
more particularly engage the attention of the critic : how far, 
namely, the invention and execution of a drama must belong to 
one man to entitle him to pass for its author. Dramatic litera- 
ture affords numerous examples of plays composed by several 
persons conjointly. It is well known that Euripides, in the 
details and execution of his pieces, availed himself of the 
assistance of a learned servant, Cephisophon ; and he perhaps 
also consulted with him respecting his plots. It appears, 
moreover, certain that in Athens schools of dramatic art had 
at this date been formed; such, indeed, as usually arise when 
poetical talents are, by public competition, called abundantly 
and actively into exercise : schools of art which contain scho- 
lars of such excellence and of such kindred genius, that the 
master may confide to them a part of the execution, and even 
the plan, and yet allow the whole to pass under his name 
without any disparagement to his fame. Such were the 
schools of painting of the sixteenth century, and every on© 



110 SCHOOLS OF DRAMATIC ART. 

knows what a remarkable degree of critical acumen is neces- 
sary to discover in many of Eapkael's pictures how much 
really belongs to his own pencil. Sophocles had educated 
his son lophon to the tragic art, and might therefore easily 
receive assistance from him in the actual labour of compo- 
sition, especially as it was necessary that the tragedies that 
were to compete for the prize should be ready and got by 
heart by a certain day. On the other hand, he might also 
execute occasional passages for works originally designed by 
the son ; and the pieces of this description, in which the hand 
of the master was perceptible, would be naturally attributed 
to the more celebrated name. 



EURIPIDES: HIS MERITS AND DEFECTS. Ill 



LECTURE VIII. 

Euripides — His Merits and Defects — Decline of Tragic Poetry 
through him. 

When we consider Euripides by himself, without any com- 
parison with his predecessors, when we single out some of his 
better pieces, and particular passages in others, we cannot 
refuse to him an extraordinary meed of praise. But on the 
other hand, when we take him in his connexion with the his- 
tory of art, when we look at each of his pieces as a whole, 
and again at the general scope of his labours, as revealed to 
us in the works which have come down to us, we are forced 
to censure him severely on many accounts. Of few writers 
can so much good and evil be said with truth. He was a man 
of boundless ingenuity and most versatile talents; but he 
either wanted the lofty earnestness of purpose, or the severe 
artistic wisdom, which we reverence in ^schylus and Sopho- 
cles, to regulate the luxuriance of his certainly splendid and 
amiable qualities. His constant aim is to please, he cares not 
by what means; hence is he so unequal: frequently he has 
passages of overpowering beauty, but at other times he sinks 
into downright mediocrity. With all his faults he possesses 
an admirable ease, and a certain insinuating charm. 

These preliminary observations I have judged necessary, 
since otherwise, on account of what follows, it might be 
objected to me that I am at variance with myself, having 
lately, in a short French essay, endeavoured to show the supe- 
riority of a piece of Euripides to Racine's imitation of it. 
There I fixed my attention on a single drama, and that one of 
the poet's best ; but here I consider everything from the most 
general points of view, and relatively to the highest requi- 
sitions of art ; and that my enthusiasm for ancient tragedy 
may not appear blind and extravagant, I must justify it by 
a keen examination into the traces of its degeneracy and 
decline. 



112 EURIPIDES: HIS ERRORS CONSIDERED. 

We may compare perfection in art and poetry to tlie sum- 
mit of a steep mountain, on wliich an uproUed load cannot 
long maintain its position, but immediately rolls down again 
the other side'irresistibly. It descends according to the laws 
of gravity with quickness a.nd ease, and one can calmly look 
on while it is descending: for the mass follows its natural 
tendency, while the laborious ascent is, in some degree, a 
painful spectacle. Hence it is, for example, that Ijjae paintings 
which belong to the age of declining art are much more 
pleasing to the unlearned eye, than those Avhich preceded the 
period of its perfection. The genuine connoisseur, on the 
contrary, will hold the pictures of a Zuccheri and others, who 
gave the tone when the great schools of the sixteenth century 
were degenerating into empty and superficial mannerism, to 
be in real and essential worth, far inferior to the works of a 
Mantegna, Perugino, and their contemporaries. Or let us 
suppose the perfection of art a focus : at equal distances on 
either side, the collected rays occupy equal spaces, but on this 
side they converge to^o^ards a common eftect ; whereas, on the 
other they diverge, till at last they are totally lost. 

We have, besides, a particular reason for censuring without 
reserve the errors of this poet; the fact, namely, that our 
own age is infected with the same faults with those which 
procured for Euripides so much favour, if not esteem, among 
his contemporaries. In our times we have been doomed to 
witness a number of plays which, though in matter and form 
they are far inferior to those of Euripides, bear yet in so far 
a resemblance to them, that while they seduce the feelings 
and corrupt the judgment, by means of weakly, and some- 
times even tender, emotions, their general tendency is to pro- 
duce a downright moral licentiousness. 

What I shall say on this subject will not, for the most 
part, possess even the attraction of novelty. Although the 
moderns, attracted either by the greater affinity of his views 
with their own sentiments, or led astray by an ill-understood 
opinion of Aristotle, have not unfrequeutly preferred Euri- 
pides to his two predecessors, and have unquestionably read, 
admired, and imitated him nmch more; it admits of being 
shown, however, that many of the ancients, and some even of 
the contemporaries of Euripides, held the same opinion of him 
as myself. In A nacharsis we find this mixture of praise and 



EURIPIDES CENSURED BY SOPHOCLES. 113 

censure at least alluded to^ thougli the author softens every- 
thing for the sake of his object of showing the productions of 
the GreekS; in every department, under the most favourable 
light. 

We possess some cutting sayings of Sophocles respecting 
Euripides, though he was so far from being actuated by 
anything like the jealousy of authorship, that he mourned his 
death, and, in a piece which he exhibited shortly after, he did 
not allow his actors the usual ornament of the wreath. The 
charge which Plato brings against the tragic poets, as tending 
to give men entirely up to the dominion of the passions, and 
to render them ejffeminate, by putting extravagant lamenta- 
tions in the mouths of their heroes, may, I think, be justly 
referred to Euripides alone; for, with respect to his pre- 
decessors, the injustice of it would have been universally 
apparent. The derisive attacks of Aristophanes are well 
known, though not sufficiently understood and appreciated. 
Aristotle bestows on him many a severe censure, and when 
he calls Euripides " the most tragic poet," he by no means 
ascribes to him the greatest perfection in the tragic art in 
general, but merely alludes to the moving effect which is pro- 
duced by unfortunate catastrophes ; for he immediately adds, 
" although he does not well arrange the rest." Lastly, the 
Scholiast on Euripides contains many concise and stringent 
criticisms on particular pieces, among which perhaps are 
preserved the opinions of Alexandrian critics — those critics 
who reckoned among them that Aristarchus, who, for the 
solidity and acuteness of his critical powers, has had his 
name transmitted to posterity as the proverbial designation of 
a judge of art. 

In Euripides we find the essence of the ancient tragedy no 
longer pure and unmixed; its characteristical features are 
already in part defaced. We have already placed this 
essence in the prevailing idea of Destiny, in the Ideality of the 
composition, and in the significance of the Chorus. 

Euripides inherited, it is true, the idea of Destiny from his 
predecessors, and the belief of it was inculcated in him by the 
tragic usage ; but yet in him fate is seldom the invisible spirit 
of the whole composition, the fundamental thought of the 
tragic world. We have seen that this idea may be exhibited 
under severer or milder aspects ; that the midnight terrors of 

H 



114 EURIPIDES : DECLINE OF TRAGIC POETRY. 

destiny may, in tlie courses of a whole trilogy, brighten into 
indications of a wise and beneficent Providence. Euripides, 
however, has drawn it down from the region of the infinite; 
and with him inevitable necessity not unfrequently degene- 
rates into the caprice of chance. Accordingly, he can no 
longer apply it to its proper purpose, namely, by contrast 
with it, to heighten the moral liberty of man. How few of 
his pieces turn upon a steadfast resistance to the decrees of 
fate, or an equally heroic submission to them ! His cha- 
I racters generally suflfer because they must, and not because 
i they will. 

The mutual subordination, between character and passion 
and ideal elevation, which we find observed in the same order 
in Sophocles, and in the sculpture of Greece, Euripides has 
completely reversed. Passion with him is the first thing ; his 
next care is for character, and when these endeavours leave 
him still further scope, he occasionally seeks to lay on a touch 
of grandeur and dignity, but more frequently a display of 
amiableness. 

It has been already admitted that the persons in tragedy 
ought not to be all alike faultless, as there would then be no 
opposition among them, and consequently no room for a com- 
plication of plot. But (as Aristotle observes) Euripides has, 
without any necessity, frequently painted his characters in 
the blackest colours, as, for example, his Menelaus in Orestes. 
The traditions indeed, sanctioned by popular belief, wan-anted 
him in attributing great crimes to many of the old heroes, but 
he has also palmed upou them many base and paltry traits of his 
own arbitrary invention. It was by no means the object of 
Euripides to represent the race of heroes as towering in their 
majestic stature above the men of his own age ; he rather 
endeavours to fill up, or to build over the chasm that yawned 
between his contemporaries and that wondrous olden world, and 
to come upon the gods and heroes in their undress, a surprise 
of which no greatness, it is said, can stand the test. He intro- 
duces his spectators to a sort of familiar acquaintance with 
them; he does not draw the supernatural and fabulous into 
the circle of humanity (a proceeding which we praised in 
Sophocles), but within the limits of the imperfect individuality. 
This is the meaning of Sophocles, when he said that "he drew 
men such as they ought to be, Euripides such as they are. 



Euripides: his choruses. 115 

Not that his own personages are always represented as irre- 
proachable models ; his expression referred merely to ideal 
elevation and sweetness of character and manners. It seems 
as if Euripides took a pleasure in being able perpetually to 
remind his spectators — " See ! those beings were men, subject 
to the very same weaknesses, acting from the same motives 
as yourselves, and even as the meanest among you." 
Accordingly, he takes delight in depicting the defects 
and moral failings of his characters; nay, he often makes 
them disclose them for themselves in the most oia'ive con- 
fession. They are frequently not merely undignified, but 
they even boast of their imperfections as that which ought 
to be. 

The Chorus with him is for the most part an unessential 
ornament; its songs are frequently wholly episodical, without 
reference to the action, and more distinguished for brilliancy 
than for sublimity and true inspiration. " The Chorus," says 
Aristotle, " must be considered as one of the actors, and as a 
part of the whole ; it must co-operate in the action — not as 
Euripides, but as Sophocles manages it." The older comedians 
enjoyed the privilege of allowing the Chorus occasionally to 
address the spectators in its own name ; this was called a 
Parabasis, and, as I shall afterwards show, was in accordance 
with the spirit of comedy. Although the practice is by no 
means tragical, it was, however, according to Julius Pollux, 
frequently adopted by Euripides in his tragedies, who so 
far forgot himself on some of these occasions, that in the 
Danaidw, for instance, the chorus, which consisted of females, 
made use of grammatical inflections which belonged only to 
the male sex. 

This poet has thus at once destroyed the internal essence of 
tragedy, and sinned against the laws of beauty and proportion 
in its external structure. He generally sacrifices the whole 
to the parts, and in these again he is more ambitious of foreign 
attractions, than of genuine poetic beauty. 

In the accompanying music, he adopted all the innovations 
invented by Timotheus, and chose those melodies which were 
most in unison with the efi'eminacy of his own poetry. ^ He 
proceeded in the same manner with his metres ; his versifica- 
tion is luxuriant, and runs into anomaly. The same diluted 
and effeminate character would, on a more profound investi- 

h2 



116 EURIPIDES: HIS PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINES. 

gation, be unquestionably found in the rhythms of his choral 
songs likewise. 

On all occasions he lays on, even to overloading, those 
merely corporeal charms which Winkelmann calls a "flattery 
of the gross external senses;" whatever is exciting, striking 
— in a word, all that produces a vivid effect, though without 
true worth for the mind and the feelings. He labours for 
effect to a degree which cannot be allowed even to the 
dramatic poet. For example, he hardly ever omits an oppor- 
tunity of throwing his characters into a sudden and useless 
terror; his old men are everlastingly bemoaning the infir- 
mities of age, and, in particular, are made to crawl with 
trembling limbs, and sighing at the fatigue, up the ascent 
from the orchestra to the stage, which frequently represented 
the slope of a hill. He is always endeavouring to move, and 
for the sake of emotion, he not only violates probability, but 
even sacrifices the coherence of the piece. He is strong in his 
pictures of misfortune; but he often claims our compassion 
not for inward agony of the soul, nor for pain which the 
sufferer endures with manly fortitude, but for mere bodily 
wretchedness. He is fond of reducing his heroes to the con- 
dition of beggars, of making them suffer hunger and want, 
and bringing them on the stage with all the outward signs of 
it, and clad in rags and tatters, for which Aristophanes, in 
Lis Acharnians, has so humorously taken him to task. 

Euripides was a frequenter of the schools of the philo- 
sophers (he had been a scholar of Anaxagoras, and not, as 
many have erroneously stated, of Socrates, with whom he was 
only connected by social intercourse) : and accordingly he 
indulges his vanity in introducing philosophical doctrines on 
all occasions; in my opinion, in a very imperfect manner, as 
we should not be able to understand these doctrines from his 
statements of them, if we were not previously acquainted 
with them. He thinks it too vulgar a thing to believe in the 
gods after the simple manner of the people, and he therefore 
seizes every opportunity of interspersing something of the 
allegorical interpretation of them, and carefully gives hia 
spectators to understand that the sincerity of his own belief was 
very problematical. We may distinguish in him a twofold 
character : the poet, whose productions were consecrated to a 
religious solemnity, who stood under the protection of religion, 



EURIPIDES: HIS JUSTIFICATION OF PERJURY. 117 

and wlio, therefore, on his part, was bound to honour it ; and 
the sophist, with his philosophical dicta, who endeavoured to 
insinuate his sceptical opinions and doubts into the fabulous 
marvels of religion, from which he derived the subjects of his 
pieces. But while he is shaking the ground-works of religion, 
he at the same time acts the moralist ; and, for the sake of 
popularity, he applies to the heroic life and the heroic ages 
maxims which could only apply to the social relations of his 
own times. He throws out a multitude of moral apophthegms, 
many of which he often repeats, and which are mostly trite, 
and not seldom fundamentally false. With all this parade of 
morality, the aim of his pieces, the general impression which 
they are calculated to produce is sometimes extremely immoral. 
A pleasant anecdote is told of his having put into the mouth of 
Bellerophon a silly eulogium on wealth, in which he declares 
it to be preferable to all domestic happiness, and ends with 
observing, " If Aphrodite (who bore the epithet golden) be 
indeed glittering as gold, she well deserves the love of 
mortals :" which so offended the spectators, that they raised 
a great outcry, and would have stoned both actor and poet, 
but Euripides sprang forward, aud called out, " Wait only 
till the end — he will be requited accordingly !" In like 
manner he defended himself against the objection that his 
Ixion expressed himself in too disgusting and abominable 
language, by observing that the piece concluded with his 
being broken on the wheel. But even this plea that the re- 
presented villany is requited by the final retribution of poetical 
justice, is not available in defence of all his tragedies. In some 
the wicked escape altogether untouched. Lying and other 
infamous practices are openly protected, especially when he 
can manage to palm them upon a supposed noble motive. He 
has also perfectly at command the seductive sophistry of the 
passions, which can lend a plausible appearance to everything. 
The following verse in justification of perjury, and in which 
the reservatio mentalis of the casuists seems to be substantially 
expressed, is well known : 

The tongue swore, but the mind was unsworn. 

Taken in its context, this verse, on account of which he was 
so often ridiculed by Aristophanes, may, indeed, be justified; 
but the formula is, nevertheless, bad, on account of the pos- 



118 EURIPIDES: HIS HATRED OF WOMEN. 

sible abase of its application. Another verse of Euripides: 
" For a kingdom it is wortli while to commit injustice, but in 
other cases it is well to be just," was frequently in the 
mouth of Caesar, with the like intention of making a bad us© 
of it. 

Euripides was frequently condemned even by the ancien 
for his seductive invitations to the enjoyment of sensual love. 
Every one must be disgusted when Hecuba, in order to 
induce Agamemnon to punish Polymestor, reminds him of the 
pleasures which he has enjoyed in the arms of Cassandra, his 
captive, and, therefore, by the laws of the heroic ages his concu- 
bine : she would purchase revenge for a murdered son with 
the acknowledged and permitted degradation of a living 
daughter. He was the first to make the unbridled passion of 
a Medea, and the unnatural love of a Phsedra, the main sub- 
ject of his dramas, whereas from the manners of the ancients, 
we may easily conceive why love, which among them was 
much less dignified by tender feelings than among ourselves, 
should hold only a subordinate place in the older trage- 
dies. With all the importance which he has assigned to his 
female characters, he is notorious for his hatred of women; 
and it is impossible to deny that he abounds in passages 
descanting on the frailties of the female sex, and the superior 
excellence of the male ; together with many maxims of house- 
hold wisdom : with all which he was evidently endeavouring 
to pay court to the men, who formed, if not the whole, cer- 
tainly the most considerable portion of his audience. A cut- 
ting saying and an epigram of Sophocles, on this subject, have 
been preserved, in which he accounts for the (pretended) mis- 
ogyny of Euripides by his experience of their seductibility in 
the course of his own illicit amours. In the manner in which 
women are painted by Euripides, we may observe, upon the 
whole, much sensibility even for the more noble graces of 
female modesty, but no genuine esteem. 

The substantial freedom in treating the fables, which was 
one of the prerogatives of the tragic art, is frequently carried 
by Euripides to the extreme of licence. It is well known, 
that the fables of Hyginus, which diflfer so essentially from 
those generally received, were partly extracted fi'om his 
pieces. As he frequently rejected all the incidents which 
were generally known, and to which the people were accus- 



le 
se A 



EURIPIDES: HIS PROLOGUES — ENDLESS SPEECHES. 119 

tomed, Le was reduced to tlie necessity of explaining in a pro- 
logue the situation of things in his drama^ and the course 
which they were to take. Lessing, in his Dramaturgie, has 
hazarded the singular opinion that it is a proof of an advance 
in the dramatic art, that Euripides should have trusted wholly 
to the effect of situations, without calculating on the excite- 
ment of curiosity. For my part I cannot see why, amidst 
the impressions which a dramatic poem produces, the uncer- 
tainty of expectation should not be allowed a legitimate 
place. The objection that a piece will only please in this 
respect for the first time, because on an acquaintance with it 
we know the result beforehand, may be easily answered : ii 
the representation be truly energetic, it will always rivet 
the attention of the spectator in such a manner that he will 
forget what he already knew, and be again excited to the 
same stretch of expectation. Moreover, these prologues give 
to the openings of Euripides' plays a very uniform and mono- 
tonous appearance : nothing can have a more awkward effect 
than for a person to come forward and say, I am so and so j this 
and that has already happened, and what is next to come is 
as follows. It resembles the labels in the mouths of the 
figures in old paintings, which nothing but the great simplicity 
of style in ancient times can excuse. But then all the rest 
ought to correspond, which is by no means the case with 
Euripides, whose characters always speak in the newest mode 
of the day. Both in his prologues and denouements he is 
very lavish of unmeaning appearances of the gods, who are 
only elevated above men by the machine in which they are 
suspended, and who might certainly well be spared. 

The practice of the earlier tragedians, to combine all in 
large masses, and to exhibit repose and motion in distinctly- 
marked contrast, was carried by him to an unwarrantable 
extreme. If for the sake of giving animation to the dialogue 
his predecessors occasionally employed an alternation of single- 
line speeches, in which question and answer, objection and 
retort, fly about like arrows from side to side, Euripides 
makes so immoderate and arbitrary use of this poetical device 
that very frequently one-half of his lines might be left out 
without detriment to the sense. At another time he pours 
himself out in endless speeches, where he sets himself to shew 
off his rhetorical powers in ingenious arguments, or in pathetic 



120 EURIPIDES: LOOSENESS OF HIS STYLE. 



'ancel 



appeals. Many of liis scenes liave altogether tte appearance 
of a lawsuit^ where two persons, as the parties in the litiga- 
tion, (with sometimes a third for a judge,) do not confine 
themselves to the matter in hand, but expatiate in a wide 
field, accusing their adversaries or defending themselves with 
all the adroitness of practised advocates, and not unfrequently 
with all the windings and subterfuges of pettifogging syco- 
phants. In this way the poet endeavoured to make his 
poetry entertaining to the Athenians, by its resemblance to 
their favourite daily occupation of conducting, deciding, or 
at least listening to lawsuits. On this account Quinctilian 
expressly recommends him to the young orator, and with 
great justice, as capable of furnishing him with more instruc- 
tion than the older tragedians. But such a recommendation 
it is evident is little to his credit; for eloquence may, no 
doubt, have its place in the drama when it is consistent with 
the character and the object of the supposed speaker, yet to 
allow rhetoric to usurp the place of the simple and spontane- 
ous expression of the feelings, is anything but poetical. 

The style of Euripides is upon the whole too loose, although 
he has many happy images and ingenious turns : he has 
neither the dignity and energy of ^schylus, nor the chaste 
sweetness of Sophocles. In his expressions he frequently 
affects the singular and the uncommon, but presently relapses 
into the ordinary; the tone of the discourse often sounds very 
familiar, and descends from the elevation of the cothurnus to 
the level ground. In this respect, as well as in the attempt 
(which frequently borders only too closely on the ludicrous,) 
to paint certain characteristic peculiarities, (for instance, the 
awkward carriage of the Bacchus-stricken Pentheus in his 
female attire, the gluttony of Hercules, and his boisterous 
demands on the hospitality of Admetus,) Euripides was a 
precursor of the new comedy, to which he had an evident 
inclination, as he frequently paints, under the names of the 
heroic ages, the men and manners of his own times. Hence 
Menander expressed a most marked admiration for him, and 
proclaimed himself his scholar; and we have a fragment of 
Philemon, which displays such an extravagant admiration, 
that it hardly appears to have been seriously meant. " If 
the dead," he either himself says, or makes one of his cha- 
racters to say, "had indeed any sensation, as some people 



EURIPIDES: HIS MERITS CONSIDERED. 121 

think ttey have, I would hang myself for the sake of seeing 
Euripides." — With this adoration of the later comic authors, 
the opinion of Aristophanes, his contemporary, forms a strik- 
ing contrast. Aristophanes persecutes him bitterly and un- 
ceasingly j he seems almost ordained to be his perpetual 
scourge, that none of his moral or poetical extravagances 
might go unpunished. Although as a comic poet Aristo- 
phanes is, generally speaking, in the relation of a parodist 
to the tragedians, yet he never attacks Sophocles, and even 
where he lays hold of iEschylus, on that side of his character 
which certainly may excite a smile, his reverence for him is 
still visible, and he takes every opportunity of contrasting his 
gigantic grandeur with the petty refinements of Euripides. 
With infinite cleverness and inexhaustible flow of wit, he 
has exposed the sophistical subtilty, the rhetorical and philo- 
sophical pretensions, the immoral and seductive eflfeminacy, 
and the excitations to undisguised sensuality of Euripides. 
As, however, modern critics have generally looked upon Aris- 
tophanes as no better than a writer of extravagant and 
libellous farces, and had no notion of eliciting the serious 
truths which he veiled beneath his merry disguises, it is no 
wonder if they have paid but little attention to his opinion. 

But with all this we must never forget that Euripides was 
still a Greek, and the contemporary of many of the greatest 
names of Greece in politics, philosophy, history, and the 
fine arts. If, when compared with his predecessors, he must 
rank far below them, he appears in his turn great when 
placed by the side of many of the moderns. He has a par- 
ticular strength in portraying the aberrations of a soul dis- 
eased, misguided, and franticly abandoned to its passions. 
He is admirable where the subject calls chiefly for emotion, 
and makes no higher requisitions; and he is still more so 
where pathos and moral beauty are united. Few of his 
pieces are without passages of the most ravishing beauty. It 
is by no means my intention to deny him the possession of the 
most astonishing talents; I have only stated that these talents 
were not united with a mind in which the austerity of moral 
principles, and the sanctity of religious feelings, were held in 
the highest honour. 



122 EURIPIDES : THE CHOEPHOR^ OF ^SCHYLUS. 



LECTURE IX. 

Comparison between the Choephoree of Mschjlus, the Electra of Sophocles, 
and that of Euripides. 

The relation in wticli Euripides stood to his two great pre- 
decessors, may be set in tli© clearest light by a comparison 
between their three pieces which we fortunately still possess, 
on the same subject, namely, the avenging murder of Clytem- 
nestra by her son Orestes. 

The scene of the Choephorce of JEschylus is laid in front of 
the royal palace; the tomb of Agamemnon appears on the 
stage. Orestes appears at the sepulchre, with his faithful 
Pylades, and opens the play (which is unfortunately some- 
what mutilated at the commencement,) with a prayer to Mer- 
cury, and with an invocation to his father, in which he 
promises to avenge him, and to whom he consecrates a lock of 
his hair. He sees a female train in mourning weeds issuing 
from the palace, to bring a libation to the grave; and, as he 
thinks he recognises his sister among them, he steps aside 
with Pylades in order to observe them unperceived. The 
chorus, which consists of captive Trojan virgins, in a speech, 
accompanied with mournful gestures, reveals the occasion of 
their coming, namely, a fearful dream of Clytemnestra ; it 
adds its own dark forebodings of an impending retribution of 
the bloody crime, and bewails its lot in being obliged to serve 
nnrighteous masters. Electra demands of the chorus whether 
she shall fulfil the commission of her hostile mother, or pour 
out their ofi'erings in silence; and then, in compliance with 
their advice, she also offers up a prayer to the subterranean 
Mercury and to the soul of her father, in her own name and 
that of the absent Orestes, that he may appear as the avenger. 
While pouring out the offering she joins the chorus in lamen- 
tations for the departed hero. Presently, finding a lock of 
hair resembling her own in colour, and seeing footsteps near 
the grave she conjectures that her brother has been there; 



EURIPIDES: THE CHOEPHOR^ OF ^SCHYLUS. 123 

and when she is almost frantic with joy at the thought, 
Orestes steps forward and discovers himself. He completely 
overcomes her doubts by exhibiting a garment woven by her 
own hand: they give themselves up to their joy; he addresses 
a prayer to Jupiter, and makes known how Apollo, under the 
most dreadful threats of persecution by his father's Furies, has 
called on him to destroy the authors of his death in the same 
manner as they had destroyed him, namely, by guile and cun- 
ning. Now follow odes of the chorus and Electra; partly 
consisting of prayers to her father's shade and the subterra- 
nean divinities, and partly recapitulating all the motives for 
the deed, especially those derived from the death of Agamem- 
non. Orestes inquires into the vision which induced Clytem- 
nestra to offer the libation, and is informed that she dreamt 
that she had given her breast to a dragon in her son's cradle, 
and suckled it with her blood. He hereupon resolves to 
become this dragon, *S,nd announces his intention of stealing 
into the house, disguised as a stranger, and attacking both her 
and ^gisthus by surprise. With this view he withdraws 
along with Py lades. The subject of the next choral hymn is 
the boundless audacity of mankind in general, and especially 
of women in the gratification of their unlawful passions, which 
it confirms by terrible examples from mythic story, and 
descants upon the avenging justice which is sure to overtake 
them at last. Orestes, in the guise of a stranger, returns with 
Pylades, and desires admission into the palace. Clytemnestra 
comes out, and being informed by him of the death of Orestes, 
at which tidings Electra assumes a feigned grief, she invites 
him to enter and partake of their hospitality. After a short 
prayer of the chorus, the nurse comes and mourns for her 
foster-child ; the chorus inspires her with a hope that he yet 
lives, and advised her to contrive to bring ^gisthus, for whom 
Clytemnestra has sent her, not with, but without his body 
guard. As the critical moment draws near, the chorus profters 
prayers to Jupiter and Mercury for the success of the plot, 
.^gisthus enters into conversation with the messenger; he 
can hardly allow himself to believe the joyful news of the 
death of Orestes, and hastens into the house for the purpose 
of ascertaining the truth, from whence, after a short prayer of 
the chorus, we hear the cries of the murdered. A servant 
rushes out, and to warn Clytemnestra gives the alarm at the 



1 24 EURIPIDES : THE ELECTRA OF SOPHOCLES. 

door of the women's apartment. She hears it, comes forward,:] 
and calls for an axe to defend herself; but as Orestes instan- 
taneoasly rushes on her with the bloody sword, her courage 
fails her, and, most affectiugly, she holds up to him the breast 
at which she had suckled him. Hesitating in his purpose, he 
asks the counsel of Pylades, who in a few lines exhorts him 
by the most cogent reasons to persist; after a brief dialogue 
of accusation and defence, he pursues her into the house to 
slay her beside the body of iEgisthus. In a solemn ode the 
chorus exults in the consummated retribution. The doors of 
the palace are thrown open, and disclose in the chamber the 
two dead bodies laid side by side on one bed. Orestes orders 
the servants to unfold the garment in whose capacious folds 
his father was muffled when he was slain, that it may be seen 
by all; the chorus recognise on it the stains of blood, and 
mourn afresh the murder of Agamemnon. Orestes, feeling 
his mind already becoming confused, seizes the first moment 
to justify his acts, and having declared his intention of repair- 
ing to Delphi to purify himself from his blood-guiltiness, flies 
in terror from the furies of his mother, whom the chorus does 
not perceive, but conceives to be a mere phantom of his ima- 
gination, but who, nevertheless, will no longer allow him any 
repose. The chorus concludes with a reflection on the scene 
of murder thrice-repeated in the royal palace since the repast 
of Thyestes. 

The scene of the Electra of Sophocles is also laid before the 
palace, but does not contain the grave of Agamemnon. At 
break of day Pylades, Orestes, and the guardian slave who had 
been his preserver on that bloody day, enter the stage as just 
arriving from a foreign country. The keeper who acts as his 
guide commences with a description of his native city, and he 
is answered by Orestes, who recounts the commission given 
him by Apollo, and the manner in which he intends to carry 
it into execution, after which the young man puts up a 
prayer to his domestic gods and to the house of his fathers. 
Electra is heard complaining within ; Orestes is desirous of 
greeting her without delay, but the old man leads him away 
to ofier a sacrifice at the grave of his father. Electra then 
appears, and pours out her sorrow in a pathetic address to 
heaven, and in a prayer to the infernal deities her unconquer- 
able desire of revenge. The chorus, which consists of native 



EURIPIDES: THE ELECTRA OF SOPHOCLES. 125 

virgins^ endeavours to console her; and, interchanging li3rmu 
and speech with the chorus, Electra discloses her unabatable 
sorrow, the contumely and oppression under which she suffers, 
and her hopelessness occasioned by the many delays of Orestes, 
notwithstanding her frequent exhortations; and she turns a 
deaf ear to all the grounds of consolation which the chorus can 
suggest. Chrysothemis, Clytemnestra's younger, more sub- 
missive, and favourite daughter, approaches with an offering 
which she is to carry to the grave of her father. Their 
difference of sentiment leads to an altercation between the two 
sisters, during which Chrysothemis informs Electra that ^gis- 
thus, now absent in the country, has determined to adopt the 
most severe measures with her, whom, however, she sets at 
defiance. She then learns from her sister that Clytemnestra 
has had a dream that Agamemnon had come to life again, 
and had planted his sceptre in the floor of the house, and it 
had grown up into a tree that overshadowed the whole land ; 
that, alarmed at this vision, she had commissioned Chryso- 
themis to carry an oblation to his grave. Electra counsels 
her not to execute the commands of her wicked mother, but 
to put up a prayer for herself and her sister, and for the 
return of Orestes as the avenger of his father ; she then adds 
to the oblation her own girdle and a lock of her hair. 
Chrysothemis goes off, promising obedience to her wishes. 
The chorus augurs from the dream, that retribution is at hand, 
and traces back the crimes committed in this house to the 
primal sin of Pelops. Clytemnestra rebukes her daughter, with 
whom, however, probably under the influence of the dream, she 
is milder than usual; she defends her murder of Agamemnon, 
Electra condemns her for it, but without violent altercation. 
Upon this Clytemnestra, standing at the altar in front of the 
house, proffers a prayer to Apollo for health and long life, 
and a secret one for the death of her son. The guardian of 
Orestes arrives, and, in the character of a messenger from a 
Phocian friend, announces the death of Orestes, and minutely 
enumerates all the circumstances which attended his being 
killed in a chariot-race at the Pythian games. Clytemnestra, 
although visited for a moment with a mother's feelings, can 
scarce conceal her triumphant joy, and invites the messenger 
to partake of the hospitality of her house. Electra, in touch- 
ing speeches and hymns, giyes herself up to grief; the chorus 



126 EURIPIDES: THE ELECTRA OF SOPHOCLES. 

in vain endeavours to console Ler. Chrysothemis returns 
from the grave, full of joy in the assurance that Orestes is 
near; for she has found his lock of hair, his drink-offering 
and wreaths of flowers. This serves but to renew the despair 
of Electra, who recounts to her sister the gloomy tidings 
which have just arrived, and exhorts her, now that all other 
hope is at an end, to join with her in the daring deed of put- 
ting JEgisthus to death : a proposal which Chrysothemis, not 
possessing the necessary courage, rejects as foolish, and after 
a violent altercation she re-enters the house. The chorus 
bewails Electra, now left utterly desolate. Orestes returns with 
Pylades and several servants bearing an urn with the pre- 
tended ashes of the deceased youth. Electra begs it of them, 
and laments over it in the most affecting language, which 
agitates Orestes to such a degree that he can no longer 
conceal himself; after some preparation he discloses himself 
to her, and confirms the announcement by producing the seal- 
ring of their father. She gives vent in speech and song to 
her unbounded joy, till the old attendant of Orestes comes 
out and reprimands them both for their want of consideration. 
Electra with some difficulty recognizes in him the faithful 
servant to whom she had entrusted the care of Orestes, and 
expresses her gratitude to him. At the suggestion of the old 
man, Orestes and Pylades accompany him with all speed into 
the house, in order to surprise Clytemnestra while she is still 
alone. Electra offers up a prayer to Apollo in their behalf; 
the choral ode announces the moment of retribution. From 
within the house is heard the shrieks of the affrighted Cly- 
temnestra, her short prayer, her cry of agony under the 
death-blow. Electra from without stimulates Orestes to 
complete the deed, and he comes out with bloody hands. 
Warned however by the chorus of the approach of ^gisthus, 
he hastily re-enters the house in order to take him by sur- 
prise, ^gisthus inquires into the story of Orestes' death, 
and from the ambiguous language of Electra is led to believe 
that his corpse is in the palace. He commands all the gates 
to be thrown open, immediately, for the purpose of con- 
vincing those of the people who yielded reluctant obedience 
to his sovereignty, that they had no longer any hopes 
in Orestes. The middle entrance opens, and discloses in 
the interior of the palace a body lying on the bed, but 



EURIPIDES: HIS ELECTRA. 127 

closely covered over: Orestes stands beside the body, and 
invites iEgisthus to uncover it; be suddenly bebolds the 
bloody corpse of Clytemnestra^ and concludes himself lost 
and without hope. He requests to be allowed to speak, but 
this is prevented by Electra. Orestes constrains him to enter 
the house, that he may kill him on the very spot where his 
own father had been murdered. 

The scene of the Electra of Euripides is not in Mycenae, in 
the open country, but on the borders of Argolis, and before a 
solitary and miserable cottage. The owner, an old peasant, 
comes out and in a prologue tells the audience how matters 
stand in the royal house, with this addition, however, to the 
incidents related in the two plays already considered, that 
not content to treat Electra with ignominy, and to leave her 
in a state of celibacy, they had forced her to marry beneath 
her rank, and to accept of himself for a husband: the motives 
he assigns for this proceeding are singular enough ; he declares, 
however, that he has too much respect for her to reduce her 
to the humiliation of becoming in reality his wife. — They 
live therefore in virgin wedlock. Electra comes forth before 
it is yet daybreak bearing upon her head, which is close 
shorn in servile fashion, a pitcher to fetch water : her 
husband entreats her not to trouble herself with such unac- 
customed labours, but she will not be withheld from the dis- 
charge of her household duties; and the two depart, he to his 
work in the field and she upon her errand. Orestes now 
enters with Pylades, and, in a speech to him, states that he 
has already sacrificed at his father's grave, but that not 
daring to enter the city, he wi.^hes to find his sister, who, he 
is aware, is married and dwells somewhere near on the 
frontiers, that he may learn from her the posture of afiairs. 
He sees Electra approach with the water-pitcher, and retires. 
She breaks out into an ode bewailing her own fate and 
that of her father. Hereupon the chorus, consisting of rustic 
virgins, makes its appearance, and exhorts her to take a part 
in a festival of Juno, which she, however, depressed in spirit, 
pointing to her tattered garments, declines. The chorus ofier 
to supply her with festal ornaments, but she still refuses. 
She perceives Orestes and Pylades in their hiding-place, 
takes them for robbers, and hastens to escape into the house; 
when Orestes steps forward and prevents her, she imagines 



128 Euripides: his electra. 

lie intends to murder lier ; he removes her fears, and gives 
her assurances that her brother is still alive. On this he 
inquires into her situation, and the spectators are again 
treated with a repetition of all the circumstances. Orestes 
still forbears to disclose himself, and promising merely to 
€arrj any message from Electra to her brother, testifies, as 
a stranger, his sympathy in her situation. The chorus seizes 
this opportunity of gratifying its curiosity about the fatal 
events of the city; and Electra, after describing her own 
misery, depicts the wantonness and arrogance of her mother 
and ^gisthus, who, she says, leaps in contempt upon Aga- 
memnon's grave, and throws stones at it. The peasant 
returns from his work, and thinks it rather indecorous in his 
wife to be gossiping with young men, but when he hears that 
they have brought news of Orestes, he invites them in a 
friendly manner into his house. Orestes, on witnessing the 
behaviour of the worthy man, makes the reflection that the 
most estimable people are frequently to be found in low sta- 
tions, and in lowly garb. Electra upbraids her husband for 
inviting them, knowing as he must that they had nothing in 
the house to entertain them with ; he is of opinion that the 
strangers will be satisfied with what he has, that a good house- 
wife can always make the most of things, and that they have 
at least enough for one day. She dispatches him to Orestes' 
old keeper and preserver who lives hard by them, to bid him 
come and bring something with him to entertain the strangers, 
and the peasant departs muttering wise saws about riches 
and moderation. The chorus bursting out into an ode on the 
expedition of the Greeks against Troy, describes at great 
length the figures wrought on the shield which Achilles 
received from Thetis, and concludes with expresing a wish 
that Clytemnestra may be punished for her ^vickedness. 

The old guardian, who with no small difficulty ascends the 
hill towards the house, brings Electra a lamb, a cheese, and a 
■skin of wine ; he then begins to weep, not failing of course to 
wipe his eyes with his tattered garments. In reply to the 
questions of Electra he states, that at the grave of Agamem- 
non he found traces of an oblation and a lock of hair ; from 
which circumstance he conjectured that Orestes had been 
there. We have then an allusion to the means which ^schy- 
lus had employed to bring about the recognition, namely, the 



EURIPIDES: HIS ELECTRA. 129 

resemblance of the hair, the prints of feet, as well as the 
homespun-robe, with a condemnation of them as insufficient 
and absurd. The probability of this part of the drama of 
iEschylus may, perhaps, admit of being cleared up, at all 
events one is ready to overlook it; but an express reference 
like this to another author's treatment of the same subject, is 
the most annoying interruption and the most fatal to genuine 
poetry that can possibly be conceived. The guests come 
out ; the old man attentively considers Orestes, recognizes him, 
and convinces Electra that he is her brother by a scar on his 
eyebrow, which he received from a fail (this is the superb in- 
vention, which he substitutes for that of ^schylus), Orestes 
and Electra embrace during a short choral ode, and abandon 
themselves to their joy. In a long dialogue, Orestes, the old 
slave, and Electra, form their plans. The old man informs 
them that -^gisthus is at present in the country sacrificing 
to the Nymphs, and Orestes resolves to steal there as a 
guest, and to fall on him by surprise. Clytemnestra, from a 
dread of unpleasant remarks, has not accompanied him ; and 
Electra undertakes to entice her mother to them by a false 
message of her being in child-bed. The brother and sister 
now join in prayers to the gods and their father's shade, for a 
successful issue of their designs. Electra declares that she 
will put an end to her existence if they should miscarry, and, 
for that purpose, she will keep a sword in readiness. The 
old tutor departs with Orestes to conduct him to iEgisthus, 
and to repair afterwards to Clytemnestra. The chorus sings 
of the Golden Ram, which Thyestes, by the assistance of the 
faithless wife of Atreus, was enabled to carry off from him, 
and the repast furnished with the flesh of his own children, 
with which he was punished in return ; at the sight of which 
the sun turned aside from his course; a circumstance, how- 
ever, which the chorus very sapiently adds, that it was very 
much inclined to call in question. From a distance is heard 
a noise of tumult and groans ; Electra fears that her brother 
has been overcome, and is on the point of killing herself. 
But at the moment a messenger arrives, who gives a long- 
winded account of the death of iEgisthus, and interlards it 
with many a joke. Amidst the rejoicings of the chorus, 
Electra fetches a wreath and crowns her brother, who holds in 
his hands the head of ^gisthus by the hair. This head she 

I 



130 EURIPIDES: HIS ELECTRA. 

upbraids in a lon^ speech with its follies and crimes, and 
among other things says to it, it is never well to marry a 
woman with whom one has previously lived in illicit inter- 
course ; that it is an unseemly thing when a woman obtains 
the mastery in a family, &c. Clytenmestra is now seea 
approaching ; Orestes begins to have scruples of conscience as 
to his purpose of murdering a mother, and the authority of 
the oracle, but yields to the persuasions of Electra, and agrees 
to do the deed within the house. The queen arrives, drawn 
in a chariot sumptuously hung with tapestry, and surrounded 
by Trojan slaves; Electra makes an offer to assist her in 
alighting, which, however, is declined. Clytemnestra then 
alleges the sacrifice of Iphigenia as a justification of her own 
conduct towards Agamemnon, and calls even upon her daugh- 
ter to state her reasons in condemnation, that an opportunity 
may be given to the latter of delivering a subtle, captious 
harangue, in which, among other things, she reproaches her 
mother with having, during the absence of Agamemnon, sat 
before her mirror, and studied her toilette too much. With 
all this Clytemnestra is not provoked, even though her daugh- 
ter does not hesitate to declare her intention of putting her to 
death if ever it should be in her power ; she makes inquiries 
about her daughter's supposed confinement, and enters the hut 
to prepare the necessary sacrifice of purification. Electra 
accompanies her with a sarcastic speech. On this the chorus 
begins an ode on retribution: the shrieks of the murdered 
woman are heard within the house, and the brother and sister 
come out stained with her blood. They are full of repentance 
and despair at the deed which they have committed; increase 
their remorse by repeating the pitiable words and gestures of 
their dying parent. Orestes determines on flight into foreign 
lands, while Electra asks, " Who will now take me in mar- 
riage?" Castor and Pollux, their uncles, appear in the air, 
abuse Apollo on account of his oracle, command Orestes, in 
order to save himself from the Furies, to submit to the sentence 
of the Areopagus, and conclude with predicting a number of 
events which are yet to happen to him. They then enjoin a 
marriage between Electra and Pylades ; who are to take her 
first husband with them to Phocis, and there richly to pro- 
vide for him. After a further outburst of sorrow, the brother 
and sister take leave of one another for life, and the piece 
concludes. 



EURIPIDES: JESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES COMPARISON. 131 

We easily perceive that -^schylus has viewed the subject 
in its most terrible aspect, and drawn it within that domain of 
the gloomy divinities, whose recesses he so loves to haunt. 
The grave of Agamemnon is the murky gloom from which 
retributive vengeance issues; his discontented shade, the soul 
of the whole poem. The obvious external defect, that the 
action lingers too long at the same point, without any sen- 
sible progress, appears, on reflection, a true internal perfec- 
tion: it is the stillness of expectation before a deep storm 
or an earthquake. It is true the prayers are repeated, but 
their very accumulation heightens the impression of a great 
unheard-of purpose, for which human powers and motives by 
themselves are insufficient. In the murder of Clytemnestra, 
and her heart-rending appeals, the poet, without disguising 
her guilt, has gone to the very verge of what was allowable 
in awakening our sympathy with her sufferings. The crime 
which is to be punished is kept in view from the very first by 
the grave, and, at the conclusion, it is brought still nearer to 
our minds by the unfolding the fatal garment : thus, Agamem- 
non, after being fully avenged, is, as it were, murdered again 
before the mental eye. The flight of Orestes betrays no un- 
dignified weakness or repentance ; it is merely the inevitable 
tribute which he must pay to offended nature. 

It is only necessary to notice in general terms the admirable 
management of the subject by Sophocles. AVhat a beautiful 
introduction has he made to precede the queen's mission to 
the grave, with which ^schylus begins at once! With what 
polished ornament has he embellished it throughout, for ex- 
ample, Avith the description of the games ! With what nice 
judgment does he husband the pathos of Electra ; first, gene- 
ral lamentations, then hopes derived from the dream, their 
annihilation by the news of Orestes' death, the new hopes 
suggested by Chrysothemis only to be rejected, and lastly 
her mourning over the urn. Electra's heroism is finely set 
off by the contrast with her more submissive sister. The poet 
has given quite a new turn to the subject by making Electra 
the chief object of interest. A noble pair has the poet here 
given us ; the sister endued with unshaken constancy in true 
and noble sentiments, and the invincible heroism of endurance ; 
the brother prompt and vigorous in all the energy of youth. 
To this he skilfully opposes circumspection and experience 

l2 



1 32 EURIPIDES : HIS ELECTRA. 

in the old man, while the fact that Sophocles as well as 
^schylus has left Pylades silent, is a proof how carefully 
ancient art disdained all unnecessary surplusage. 

But what more especially characterizes the tragedy of 
Sophocles, is the heavenly serenity beside a subject so ter- 
rific, the fresh air of life and youth which breathes through 
the whole. The bright divinity of Apollo, who enjoined the 
deed, seems to shed his influence over it; even the break of 
day, in the opening scene, is significant. The grave and the 
world of shadows, are kept in the background: what in 
jSlschylus is efi'ected by the spirit of the murdered monarch, 
proceeds here from the heart of the still living Electra, which 
is endowed with an equal capacity for inextinguishable hatred 
or ardent love. The disposition to avoid everything dark 
and ominous, is remarkable even in the very first speech of 
Orestes, where he says he feels no concern at being thought 
dead, so long as he knows himself to be alive, and in the 
full enjoyment of health and strength. He is not beset with 
misgivings or stings of conscience either before or after the 
deed, so that the determination is more steadily maintained 
by Sophocles than in iEschylus ; and the appalling scene with 
^gisthus, and the reserving him for an ignominious death to 
the very close of the piece, is more austere and solemn than 
anything in the older drama. Clytemnestra's dreams furnish 
the most striking token of the relation which the two poets 
bear to each other : both are equally appropriate, significant, 
and ominous; that of i^ischylus is grander, but appalling to 
the senses ; that of Sophocles, in its very fearfulness, majes- 
tically beautiful. 

The piece of Euripides is a singular example of poetic, or 
rather unpoetic obliquity; we should never have done were 
we to attempt to point out all its absurdities and contradic- 
tions. Wiy, for instance, does Orestes fruitlessly torment 
his sister by maintaining his incognito so long? The poet, 
too, makes it a light matter to throw aside whatever stands 
in his way, as in the case of the peasant, of whom, after his 
departure to summon the old keeper, we have no farther 
account. Partly for the sake of appearing original, and 
partly from an idea that to make Orestes kill the king and 
queen in the middle of their capital would be inconsistent 
with probability, Euripides has involved himself in still 



EURIPIDES : HIS ELECTRA. 1 33 

greater improbabilities. Whatever there is of the tragical 
in his drama is not his own^ but belongs either to the fable, to 
his predecessors, or to tradition. In his hands, at least, it 
has ceased to be tragedy, but is lowered into " a family pic- 
ture," in the modern signification of the word. The effect 
attempted to be produced by the poverty of Electra is pitiful 
in the extreme ; the poet has betrayed his secret in the com- 
placent display which she makes of her misery. All the 
preparations for the crowning act are marked by levity, and 
a want of internal conviction: it is a gratuitous torture of 
our feelings to make ^gisthus display a good-natured hos- 
pitality, and Cljrtemnestra a maternal sympathy with her 
daughter, merely to excite our compassion in their behalf; the 
deed is no sooner executed, but its effect is obliterated by the 
most despicable repentance, a repentance which arises from no 
moral feeling, but from a merely animal revulsion. I shall 
say nothing of his abuse of the oracle of Delphi. As it 
destroys the very basis of the whole drama, I cannot see why 
Euripides should have written it, except to provide a fortu- 
nate marriage for Electra, and to reward the peasant for his 
continency. I could wish that the wedding of Pylades had 
been celebrated on the stage, and that a good round sum of 
money had been paid to the peasant on the spot; then CA^ery- 
thing would have ended to the satisfaction of the spectators 
as in an ordinary comedy. 

Not, however, to be unjust, I must admit that the Electra 
is perhaps the very worst of Euripides' pieces. Was it the 
rage for novelty which led him here into such faults'? He 
was truly to be pitied for having been preceded in the treat- 
ment of this same subject by two such men as Sophocles and 
iEschylus. But what compelled him to measure his powers 
with theirs, and to write an Electra at all? 



134 EURIPIDES : HIS REMAINING WORKS. 



LECTURE X. 

Character of the remaining Works of Euripides — The Satirical Drama- 
Alexandrian Tragic Poets. 

Of tlie plays of Euripides, which have come down to us in 
great number^, we can only give a very short and general 
account. 

On the score of beautiful morality, there is none of them, 
perhaps, so deserving of praise as the Alcestis. Her reso- 
lution to die, and the farewell which she takes of her husband 
and children, are depicted with the most overpowering pa- 
thos. The poet's forbearance, in not allowing the heroine to 
speak on her return from the infernal world, lest he might 
draw aside the mysterious veil which shrouds the condition of 
the dead, is deserving of high praise. Admetus, it is true, 
and more especially his father, sink too much in our esteem 
from their selfish love of life ; and Hercules appears, at first, 
blunt even to rudeness, afterwards more noble and worthy of 
himself, and at last jovial, when, for the sake of the joke, he 
introduces to Admetus his A^eiled wife as a new bride. 

Ipkigenia in Aulis is a subject peculiarly suited to the 
tastes and powers of Euripides; the object here is to excite a 
tender emotion for the innocent and child-like simplicity of 
the heroine: but Iphigenia is still very far from being an 
Antigone. Aristotle has already remarked that the charac- 
ter is not well sustained throughout. " Iphigenia imploring," 
he says, " has no resemblance to Iphigenia afterwards yield- 
ing herself up a willing sacrifice." 

Ion is also one of his most delightful pieces, on account of 
the picture of innocence and priestly sanctity in the boy 
whose name it bears. In the course of the plot, it is true, 
there are not a few improbabilities, makeshifts, and repeti- 
tions ; and the catastrophe, produced by a falsehood, in which 
both gods and men unite against Xuthus, can hardly be satis- 
factory to our feelings. 



EURIPIDES: HIS MEDEA. 135 

As delineations of female passion, and of the aberrations of 
a mind diseased, Phaedra and Medea have been justly praised. 
The play in which the former is introduced dazzles us by the 
sublime and beautiful heroism of Hippolytus; and it is also 
deserving of the highest commendation on account of the ob- 
servance of propriety and moral strictness, in so critical a 
subject. This, however, is not so much the merit of the poet 
himself as of the delicacy of his contemporaries ; for the Hip- 
polytus which we possess, according to the scholiast, is an im- 
provement upon an earlier one, in which there was much that 
was offensive and reprehensible *. 

The opening of the Medea is admirable; her desperate 
situation is, by the conversation between her nurse and the 
keeper of her children, and her own wailings behind the 
scene, depicted with most touching effect. As soon, however, 
as she makes her appearance, the poet takes care to cool our 
emotion by the number of general and commonplace reflec- 
tions which he puts into her mouth. Lower does she sink in 
the scene with ^geus, where, meditating a terrible revenge 
on Jason, she first secures a place of refuge, and seems almost 
on the point of bespeaking a new connection. This is very 
unlike the daring criminal who has reduced the powers of 
nature to minister to her ungovernable passions, and speeds 
from land to land like a desolating meteor ; — the Medea who, 
abandoned by all the world, was still sufficient for herself. 
Nothing but a wish to humour Athenian antiquities could 
Lave induced Euripides to adopt this cold interpolation of his 
story. With this exception he has, in the most vivid colours, 
painted, in one and the same person, the mighty enchantress, 
and the woman weak only from the social position of her sex. 
As it is, we are keenly affected by the struggles of maternal 
tenderness in the midst of her preparations for the cruel deed. 
Moreover, she announces her deadly purpose much too soon 
and too distinctly, instead of brooding awhile over the first, 

* The learned and acute Brunck, without citing any authority, or the 
coincidence of fragments in corroboration, says that Seneca in his Hip- 
polytus, followed the plan of the earlier play of Euripides, called the Veiled 
Hippolytus. How far this is mere conjecture I cannot say, but at any 
rate I should be inclined to doubt whether Euripides, even in the censured 
drama, admitted the scene of the declaration of love, which Racine, how- 
ever, in his PhoBdra, has not hesitated to adopt firom Seneca. 



136 EURIPIDES : HIS TROADES. 

confused, dark suggestion of it. When she does put it in 
execution, her thirst of revenge on Jason might, we should 
Lave thought, have been sufficiently slaked by the horrible 
death of his young wife and her father; and the new motive, 
namely, that Jason, as she pretends, would infallibly murder 
the children, and therefore she must anticipate him, will by 
no means bear examination. For she could as easily have 
saved the living children with herself, as have carried off their 
dead bodies in the dragon-chariot. Still this may, perhaps, 
be justified by the perturbation of mind into which she was 
plunged by the crime she had perpetrated. 

Perhaps it was such pictures of universal sorrow, of the fall 
of flourishing families and states from the greatest glory to 
the lowest misery, nay, to entire annihilation, as Euripides 
has sketched in the Troades, that gained for him, from Ari- 
stotle, the title of tlie most tragic of poets. The concluding 
scene, where the captive ladies, allotted as slaves to different 
masters, leave Troy in flames behind them, and proceed 
towards the ships, is truly grand. It is impossible, however, 
for a piece to have less action, in the energetical sense of 
the word : it is a series of situations and events, which have 
no other connexion than that of a common origin in the cap- 
ture of Troy, but in no respect have they a common aim. The 
accumulation of helpless suffering, against which the will and 
sentiment even are not allowed to revolt, at last wearies us, 
and exhausts our compassion. The greater the struggle to 
avert a calamity, the deeper the impression it makes when it 
bursts forth after all. But when so little concern is shown, as 
is here the case with Astyanax, for the speech of Talthybius 
prevents even the slightest attempt to save him, the spectator 
soon acquiesces in the result. In this way Euripides fre- 
quently fails. In the ceaseless demands which this play makes 
on our compassion, the pathos is not duly economized and 
brought to a climax : for instance, Andromache's lament over 
her living son is much more heart-rending than that of He- 
cuba for her dead one. The effect of the latter is, however, 
aided by the sight of the little corpse lying on Hector's shield. 
Indeed, in the composition of this piece the poet has evidently 
reckoned much on ocular effect : thus, for the sake of contrast 
with the captive ladies, Helen appears splendidly dressed, 
Andromache is mounted on a car laden with spoils ; and I 



EURIPIDES: HIS MAD HERCULES PHCENISS^. 137 

doubt not but that at the conclusion the entire scene was in 
flames. The trial of Helen painfully interrupts the train of 
our sympathies, by an idle altercation which ends in nothing; 
for in spite of the accusations of Hecuba, Menelaus abides by 
the resolution which he had previously formed. The defence 
of Helen is about as entertaining as Isocrates' sophistical eulo- 
gium of her. 

Euripides was not content with making Hecuba roll in the 
dust with covered head, and whine a whole piece through ; he 
has also introduced her in another tragedy which bears her 
name, as the standing representative of suffering and woe. 
The two actions of this piece, the sacrifice of Polyxena, and 
the revenge on Polymestor, on account of the murder of Poly- 
dorus, have nothing in common with each other but their con- 
nexion with Hecuba. The first half possesses great beauties 
of that particular kind in which Euripides is pre-eminently 
successful: pictures of tender youth, female innocence, and 
noble resignation to an early and violent death. A human 
sacrifice, that triumph of barbarian superstition, is represented 
as executed, suffered, and looked upon, with that Hellenism 
of feeling which so early effected the abolition of such sacri- 
fices among the Greeks. But the second half most revoltingly 
effaces these soft impressions. It is made up of the revenge- 
ful artifices of Hecuba, the blind avarice of Polymestor, and 
the paltry policy of Agamemnon, who, not daring himself to 
call the Thracian king to account, nevertheless beguiles him 
into the hands of the captive women. Neither is it very con- 
sistent that Hecuba, advanced in years, bereft of strength, and 
overwhelmed with sorrow, should nevertheless display so much 
presence of mind in the execution of revenge, and such a 
command of tongue in her accusation and derision of Poly- 
mestor. 

We have another example of two distinct and separate 
actions in the same tragedy, the Mad Hercules. The first is 
the distress of his family during his absence, and their deliver- 
ance by his return; the second, his remorse at having in 
a sudden frenzy murdered his wife and children. The one 
action follows, but by no means arises out of the other. 

The Phoenissce is rich in tragic incidents, in the common 
acceptation of the word : the S4>n of Creon, to save his native 
city, precipitates himself from the walls ; Eteocles and Poly- 



138 EURIPIDES: ORESTES IPHIGENIA. 

nices perisli by each otlier's hands; over their dead bodies 
Jocasta falls by her own hand ; the Argives who have made 
war upon Thebes are destroyed in battle ; Polynices remains 
uninterred ; and lastly^ CEdipus and Antigone are driven into 
exile. After this enumeration of the incidents, the Scholiast 
aptly notices the arbitrary manner in which the poet has pro- 
ceeded. " This drama," says he, " is beautiful in theatrical 
effect, even because it is full of incidents totally foreign to the 
proper action. Antigone looking down from the walls has 
nothing to do with the action, and Polynices enters the town 
under the safe-conduct of a truce, without any effect being 
thereby produced. After all the rest the banished CEdipus 
and a wordy ode are tacked on, being equally to no purpose." 
This is a severe criticism, but it is just. 

Not more lenient is the Scholiast on Orestes : " This piece," 
he says, " is one of those which produce a great effect on the 
stage, but with respect to characters it is extremely bad; for, 
with the exception of Pylades, all the rest are good for no- 
thing." Moreover, "Its catastrophe is more suitable to comedy 
than tragedy." This drama begins, indeed, in the most agitating 
manner. Orestes, after the murder of his mother, is represented 
lying on his bed, afflicted with anguish of soul and madness ; 
Electra sits at his feet, and she and the chorus remain in 
trembling expectation of his awaking. Afterwards, however, 
everything takes a perverse turn, and ends with the most 
violent strokes of stage effect. 

The Iphigenia in Tauris, in which the fate of Orestes is 
still further followed out, is less wild and extravagant, but in 
the representation both of character or passion, it seldom rises 
above mediocrity. The mutual recognition between brother 
and sister, after such adventures and actions, as that Iphigenia, 
who had herself once trembled before the bloody altar, was on 
the point of devoting her brother to a similar fate, produces no 
more than a transient emotion. The flight of Orestes and his 
sister is not highly calculated to excite our interest : the arti- 
fice by which Iphigenia brings it about is readily credited by 
Thoas, who does not attempt to make any opposition till both 
are safe, and then he is appeased by one of the ordinary divine 
interpositions. This device has been so used and abused by 
Euripides, that in nine out of his eighteen tragedies, a divinity 
descends to unravel the complicated knot. 



EURIPIDES: HERACLIDiE — SUPPLICES. 139 

In Andromache Orestes makes liis appearance for the fourth 
time. The Scholiast, in whose opinion we maj, we think, 
generally recognize the sentiments of the most important of 
ancient critics, declares this to be a very second-rate play, in 
which single scenes alone are deserving of any praise. Of 
those on which Racine has based his free imitations, this 
is unquestionably the very worst, and therefore the French 
critics have an easy game to play in their endeavours to 
depreciate the Grecian predecessor, from whom Racine has 
in fact derived little more than the first suggestion of his 
tragedy. 

The Bacchoe represents the infectious and tumultuous en- 
thusiasm of the worship of Bacchus, with great sensuous 
power and vividness of conception. The obstinate unbelief 
of Pentheus, his infatuation, and terrible punishment by the 
hands of his own mother, form a bold picture. The ejQTect on 
the stage must have been extraordinary. Imagine, only, a 
chorus with flying and dishevelled hair and dress, tambourines, 
cymbals, &c., in their hands, like the Bacchants we see on 
bas-reliefs, bursting impetuously into the orchestra, and exe- 
cuting their inspired dances amidst tumultuous music, — a 
circumstance, altogether unusual, as the choral odes were 
generally sung and danced at a solemn step, and with no 
other accompaniment than a flute. Here the luxuriance of 
ornament, which Euripides everywhere affects, was for once 
appropriate. When, therefore, several of the modern critics 
assign to this piece a very low rank, they seem to me not to 
know what they themselves would wish. In the composition 
of this piece, I cannot help admiring a harmony and unity, 
which we seldom meet with in Euripides, as well as absti- 
nence from every foreign matter, so that all the motives and 
effects flow from one source, and concur towards a common 
end. After the Hippolytus, I should be inclined to assign to 
this play the first place among all the extant works of Euri- 
pides. 

The Heraclidm and the SuppUces are mere occasional trage- 
dies, i. e., owing their existence to some temporary incident 
or excitement, and they must have been indebted for their 
success to nothing else but their flattery of the Athenians. 
They celebrate two ancient heroic deeds of Athens, on which 
the paneygristSj amongst the rest Isocrates, who always 



i 40 EURIPIDES : HERACLID^ SUPPLICES. 

mixed up the fabulous witli the historical, lay astonishing 
stress : the protection they are said to have afforded to the 
children of Hercules, the ancestors of the Lacedaemonian 
kings, from the persecution of Eurystheus, and their going 
to war with Thebes on behalf of Adrastus, king of Argos, 
and forcing the Thebans to give the rites of burial to the 
Seven Chieftains and their host. The Supplices was, as 
we know, represented during the Peloponnesian war, after the 
conclusion of a treaty between' the Argives and the Lacedae- 
monians; and was intended to remind the Argives of their 
ancient obligation to Athens, and to show how little they 
coald hope to prosper in the war against the Athenians. The 
Seraclidce was undoubtedly written with a similar view in 
respect to Lacedsemon. Of the two pieces, however, which 
are both cast in the same mould, the Female Suppliants, 
so called from the mothers of the fallen heroes, is by far the 
richest in poetical merit ; the Heraclidw appears, as it were, 
but a faint impression of the other. In the former piece, it 
is true, Theseus appears at first in a somewhat unamiable 
light, upbraiding, as he does, the unfortunate Adrastus with 
his errors at such great length, and perhaps with so little 
justice, before he condescends to assist him; again the dispu- 
tation between Theseus and the Argive herald, as to the 
superiority of a monarchical or a democratical constitution, 
ought in justice to be banished from the stage to the rheto- 
rical schools j while the moral eulogium of Adrastus over the 
fallen heroes is, at least, very much out of place. I am con- 
vinced that Euripides was here drawing the characters of 
particular Athenian generals, who had fallen in some battle 
or other. But even in this case the passage cannot be justified 
in a dramatic point of view; however, without such an object, 
it would have been silly and ridiculous in describing those 
heroes of the age of Hercules, (a Capaneus, for instance, who 
«et even heaven itself at defiance,) to have launched out into 
the praise of their civic virtues. How apt Euripides was 
to wander from his subject in allusions to perfectly extraneous 
matters, and sometimes even to himself, we may see from 
a speech of Adrastus, who most impertinently is made to say, 
"It is not fair that the poet, while he delights others 
with his works, should himself suffer inconvenience." How- 
ever, the funeral lamentations and the swan-like song of 



EURIPIDES: HELEN. 141 

Evadne are aifectlngly beautiful, although she is so unex- 
pectedly introduced into the drama. Literally, indeed, may 
we say of her, that she jumps into the play, for without even 
being mentioned before she suddenly appears first of all on 
the rock, from which she throws herself on the burning pile 
of Capaneus. 

The Heraclidce is a very poor piece j its conclusion is sin- 
gularly bald. We hear nothing more of the self-sacrifice of 
Macaria, after it is over : as the determination seems to have 
cost herself no struggle, it makes as little impression upon 
others. The Athenian king, Demophon, does not return 
again ; neither does Tolaus, the companion of Hercules and 
guardian of his children, whose youth is so wonderfully 
renewed. Hyllus, the noble-minded Heraclide, never even 
makes his appearance; and nobody at last remains but 
Alcmene, who keeps up a bitter altercation with Eurystheus. 
Euripides seems to have taken a particular pleasure in draw- 
ing such implacable and rancorous old women : twice has he 
exhibited Hecuba in this light, pitting her against Helen and 
Polymestor. In general, we may observe the constant re- 
currence of the same artifice and motives is a sure symptom 
of mannerism. We have in the works of this poet three 
instances of women ofiered in sacrifice, which are moving from 
their perfect resignation : Iphigenia, Polyxena, and Macaria ; 
the voluntary deaths of Alceste and Evadne belong in some 
sort also to this class. Suppliants are in like manner a 
favourite subject with him, because they oppress the spectator 
with apprehension lest they should be torn by force from 
the sanctuary of the altar. I have already noticed his lavish 
introduction of deities towards the conclusion. 

The merriest of all tragedies is Helen, a marvellous 
drama, full of wonderful adventures and appearances, which 
are evidently better suited to comedy. The invention on 
which it is founded is, that Helen remained concealed in 
Egypt (so far went the assertion of the Egyptian priests), 
while Paris carried off an airy phantom in her likeness, for 
which the Greeks and Trojans fought for ten long years. 
By this contrivance the virtue of the heroine is saved, and 
Menelaus, (to make good the ridicule of Aristophanes on the 
beggary of Euripides' heroes,) appears in rags as a beggar, 
and in nowise dissatisfied with his condition. But this man- 



142 EURIPIDES : RHESUS — CYCLOPS. 

ner of improving mythology bears a resemblance to the Tales 
of the Thousand and One NighU. 

Modern philologists have dedicated voluminous treatises, to 
prove the spuriousness oi Rhesus, the subject of which is taken 
from the eleventh book of the Iliad. Their opinion is, that 
the piece contains such a number of improbabilities and con- 
tradictions, that it is altogether unworthy of Euripides. But 
this is by no means a legitimate conclusion. Do not the 
faults which they censure unavoidably follow from the 
selection of an intractable subject, so very inconvenient as a 
nightly enterprise ? The question respecting the genuineness 
of any work, turns not so much on its merits or demerits, as 
rather on the resemblance of its style and peculiarities to 
those of the pretended author. The few words of the Scho- 
liast amount to a very different opinion : " Some have con- 
sidered this drama to be spurious, and not the work of 
Euripides, because it bears many traces of the style of Sopho- 
cles. But it is inscribed in the Didascalice as his, and its 
accuracy with respect to the phenomena of the starry heaven 
betrays the hand of Euripides." I think I understand what 
is here meant by the style of Sophocles, but it is rather in 
detached scenes, than in the general plan, that I at all discern 
it. Hence, if the piece is to be taken from Euripides, I 
should be disposed to attribute it to some eclectic imitator, but 
one of the school of Sophocles rather than of that of Euri- 
pides, and who lived only a little later than both. This 
I infer from the familiarity of many of the scenes, for tragedy 
at this time was fast sinking into the domestic tragedy; 
whereas, at a still later period, the Alexandrian age, it fell 
into an opposite error of bombast. 

The Cyclops is a satiric drama. This is a mixed and lower 
species of tragic poetry, as we have already in passing 
asserted. The want of some relaxation for the mind, after 
the engrossing severity of tragedy, appears to have given rise 
to the satiric drama, as indeed to the after-piece in general. 
The satiric drama never possessed an independent existence ; 
it was thrown in by way of an appendage to several tragedies, 
and to judge from that we know of it, was always consider- 
ably shorter than the others. In external form it resembled 
Tragedy, and the materials were in like manner mythological. 
The distinctive mark was a chorus consisting of satyrs, who 



EURIPIDES: ANCIENT DRAMA CONCLUDED. 143 

accompanied with lively songs, gestures, and movements, 
such heroic adventures as were of a more cheerful hue, 
(many in the Odyssey for instance ; for here, also, as in many 
other respects, the germ is to be found in Homer,) or, at 
least, could be made to wear such an appearance. The 
proximate cause of this species of drama was derived from 
the festivals of Bacchus, where satyr-masks was a common 
disguise. In m3rthological stories with which Bacchus had 
no concern, these constant attendants of his were, no doubt, 
in some sort arbitrarily introduced, but still not without a 
degree of propriety. As nature, in her original freedom, ap- 
peared to the fancy of the Greeks to teem everywhere with 
wonderful productions, they could with propriety people 
with these sylvan beings the wild landscapes, remote from 
polished cities, where the scene was usually laid, and enliven 
them with their wild animal frolics. The composition of demi- 
god with demi-beast formed an amusing contrast. We have 
an example in the Cyclops of the manner in which the poets 
proceeded in such subjects. It is not unentertaining, though 
the subject-matter is for the most part contained in the Odys- 
sey; only the pranks of Silenus and his band are occasionally 
a little coarse. We must confess that, in our eyes, the great 
merit of this piece is its rarity, being the only extant speci- 
men of its class which we possess. In the satiric dramas 
^schylus must, without doubt, have displayed more boldness 
and meaning in his mirth; as, for instance, when he intro- 
duced Prometheus bringing down fire from heaven to rude 
and stupid man; while Sophocles, to judge from the few frag- 
ments we have, must have been more elegant and moral, 
as when he introduced the goddesses contending for the prize 
of beauty, or Nausicaa offering protection to the shipwrecked 
Ulysses. It is a striking feature of the easy unconstrained 
character of life among the Greeks, of its gladsome joyousness 
of disposition, which knew nothing of a starched and stately 
dignity, but artist-like admired aptness and gracefulness, 
even in the most insignificant trifles, that in this drama called 
Nausicaa, or '' TJie Washerwomen,''' in which, after Homer, 
the princess at the end of the washing, amuses herself at 
a game of ball with her maids, Sophocles himself played a-t 
ball, and by his grace in this exercise acquired much ap- 
plause. The great poet, the respected Athenian citizen, the 



144 THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOLARS. 

man wlio had already perhaps been a General, appeared 
publicly in woman's clothes, and as, on account of the feeble- 
ness of his voice, he could not play the leading part of Nau- 
sicaa, took perhaps the mute under part of a maid, for the 
sake of giving to the representation of his piece the slight 
ornament of bodily agility. 

The history ot" ancient tragedy ends with Euripides, 
although there were a number of still later tragedians ; Aga- 
thon, for instance, whom Aristophanes describes as fragrant 
with ointment and crowned with flowers, and in whose mouth 
Plato, in his Syin2Msium, puts a discourse in the taste of the 
sophist Gorgias, full of the most exquisite ornaments and 
empty tautological antitheses. He was the first to abandon 
mythology, as furnishing the natural materials of tragedy, and 
occasionally wrote pieces with purely fictitious names, (this is 
worthy of notice, as forming a transition towards the new 
comedy,) one of which was called the Flower, and was pro- 
bably therefore neither seriously aflfecting nor terrible, but in 
the style of the idyl, and pleasing. 

The Alexandrian scholars, among their other lucubrations, 
attempted also the composition of tragedies; but if we are to 
iudge of them from the only piece which has come down to 
us, the Alexandra of Lycophron, which consists of an endless 
monologue, full of prophecy, and overladen with obscure 
mythology, these productions of a subtle dilettantism must 
have been extremely inanimate and untheatrical, and every 
way devoid of interest. The creative powers of the Greeks 
were, in this department, so completely exhausted, that they 
were forced to content themselves with the repetition of the 
works of their ancient masters. 



THE OLD COMEDY. 145 



LECTURE XI. 

The Old Comedy proved to be completely a contrast to Tragedy — 
Parody — Ideality of Comedy the reverse of that of Tragedy — Mirthful 
Caprice — Allegoric and Political Signification — The Chorus and its 
Parabases. 

We now leave Tragic Poetry to occupy ourselves witli an 
entirely opposite species, the Old Comedy. Striking as this 
diversity is, we shall, however, commence with pointing out a 
certain symmetry in the contrast and certain relations between 
them, which have a tendency to exhibit the essential charac- 
ter of both in a clearer light. In forming a judgment of the 
Old Comedy, we must banish every idea of what is called 
€omedy by the moderns, and what went by the same name 
among the Greeks themselves at a later period. These two 
species of Comedy differ from each other, not only in acci- 
dental peculiarities, (such as the introduction in the old of 
real names and characters,) but essentially and diametrically. 
We must also guard against entertaining such a notion of the 
Old Comedy as would lead us to regard it as the rude begin- 
nings of the more finished and cultivated comedy of a subse- 
quent age*, an idea which many, from the unbridled licen- 
tiousness of the old comic writers, have been led to entertain. 
On the contrary the former is the genuine poetic species; but 
the New Comedy, as I shall show in due course, is its decline 
into prose and reality. 

We shall form the best idea of the Old Comedy, by con- 

* This is the purport of the section of Barthelemy in the Anacharsis 
on the Old Comedy : one of the poorest and most erroneous parts of his 
work. With the pitiful presumption of ignorance, Voltaire pronounced a 
sweeping condemnation of Aristophanes, (in other places, and in his Philo- 
sophical Dictionari/ under Art. Athee), and the modern French critics have 
for the most part followed his example. We may, however, find the founda- 
tion of all the erroneous opinions of the modems on this subject, and the 
same prosaical mode of viewing it, in Plutarch's parallel between Aristo- 
phanes and Menander. 

K 



146 PARODY TRAGEDY COMEDY. 



^ 



sidering it as the direct opposite of Tragedy. This was pro- 
bably the meaning of the assertion of Socrates, which is given 
by Plato towards the end of his Symposium. He tells us that, 
after the other guests were dispersed or had fallen asleep, 
Socrates was left awake with Aristophanes and Agathon, and 
that while he drauk with them out of a large cup, he forced 
them to confess, however unwillingly, that it is the business 
of one and the same man to be equally master of tragic and 
comic composition, and that the tragic poet is, in virtue of 
his art, comic poet also. This was not only repugnant to the 
general opinion, which wholly separated the two kinds of 
talent, but also to all experience, inasmuch as no tragic poet 
had ever attempted to shine in Comedy, nor conversely; his 
remark, therefore, can only have been meant to apply to the 
inmost essence of the things. Thus at another time, the 
Platonic Socrates says, on the subject of comic imitation : 
" All opposites can be fully understood only by and through 
each other ; consequently we can only know what is serious 
by knowing also what is laughable and ludicrous." If the 
divine Plato by working out that dialogue had been pleased 
to communicate his own, or his master's thoughts, respecting 
these two kinds of poetry, we should have been spared the 
necessity of the following investigation. 

One aspect of the relation of comic to tragic poetry may 
be comprehended under the idea of parody. This parody, 
however, is one infinitely more powerful than that of the 
mock heroic poem, as the subject parodied, by means of 
scenic representation, acquired quite another kind of reality 
and presence in the mind, from what the epopee did, which 
relating the transactions of a distant age, retired, as it were, 
with them into the remote olden time. The comic parody was 
brought out when the thing parodied was fresh in recollection, 
and as the representation took place on the same stage w^here 
the spectators were accustomed to see its serious original, 
this circumstance must have greatly contributed to heighten 
the effect of it. Moreover, not merely single scenes, 
but the very form of tragic composition was parodied, and 
doubtless the parody extended not only to the poetry, but 
also to the music and dancing, to the acting itself, and 
the scenic decoration. Nay, even where the drama trod 
in the footsteps of the plastic arts, it was still the subject 



THE NEW COMEDY — THE OLD COMEDY. 147 

of comic parody, as the ideal figures of deities were evidently 
transformed into caricatures*. Now the more immediately 
the productions of all these arts fall within the observance of 
the external senses, and, above, all the more the Greeks, 
in their popular festivals, religious ceremonies, and solemn 
processions, were accustomed to, and familiar with, the 
noble style which was the native element of tragic repre- 
sentation, so much the more irresistibly ludicrous must have 
been the effect of that general parody of the arts, which it 
was the object of Comedy to exhibit. 

But this idea does not exhaust the essential character of 
Comedy ; for parody always supposes a reference to the sub- 
ject which is parodied, and a necessary dependence on it. 
The Old Comedy, however, as a species of poetry, is as inde- 
pendent and original as Tragedy itself; it stands on the same 
elevation with it, that is, it extends just as far beyond the 
limits of reality into the domains of free creative fancy. 

Tragedy is the highest earnestness of poetry; Comedy 
altogether sportive. Now earnestness, as I observed in the 
Introduction, consists in the direction of the mental powers to 
an aim or purpose, and the limitation of their activity to that 
object. Its opposite, therefore, consists in the apparent want 
of aim, and freedom from all restraint in the exercise of the 
mental powers ; and it is therefore the more perfect, the more 
unreservedly it goes to work, and the more lively the 
appearance there is of purposeless fun and unrestrained cap- 
rice. Wit and raillery may be employed in a sportive 
manner, but they are also both of them compatible with the 
severest earnestness, as is proved by the example of the later 
Roman satires and the ancient Iambic poetry of the Greeks, 
where these means were employed for the expression of indig- 
nation and hatred. 

The New Comedy, it is true, represents what is amusing in 
character, and in the contrast of situations and combinations; 
and it is the more comic the more it is distinguished by a 
want of aim : cross purposes, mistakes, the vain efforts of 
ridiculous passion, and especially if all this ends at last in 
nothing; but still, with all this mirth, the form of the repre- 

* As an example of this, I may allude to the well-known vase-figures, 
where Mercury and Jupiter, about to ascend by a ladder into Alcmene's 
chamber, are represented as comic masks. 

k2 



148 IDEALITY OF COMEDY — IDEALITY OF TRAGEDY. 

sentation itself is serious, and regularly tied down to a certain 
aim. lu the Old Comedy the form was sportive, and a seem- 
ing aimlessness reigned throughout ; the whole poem was one 
big jest, which again contained within itself a world of sepa- 
rate jests, of which each occupied its own place, without 
appearing to trouble itself about the rest. In tragedy, 
if I may be allowed to make my meaning plain by a 
comparison, the monarchical constitution prevails, but a 
monarchy without despotism, such as it was in the heroic 
times of the Greeks : everything yields a willing obedience to 
the dignity of the heroic sceptre. Comedy, on the other 
hand, is the democracy of poetry, and is more inclined even 
to the confusion of anarchy than to any circumscription of 
the general liberty of its mental powers and purposes, and 
even of its separate thoughts, sallies, and allusions. 

Whatever is dignified, noble, and grand in human nature, 
admits only of a serious and earnest representation; for 
whoever attempts to represent it, feels himself, as it were, in 
the presence of a superior being, and is consequently awed 
and restrained by it. The comic poet, therefore, must divest 
his characters of all such qualities ; he must place himself 
without the sphere of them ; nay, even deny altogether their 
existence, and form an ideal of human nature the direct oppo- 
site of that of the tragedians, namely, as the odious and base. 
But as the tragic ideal is not a collective model of all possible 
virtues, so neither does this converse ideality consist in an 
aggregation, nowhere to be found in real life, of all moral 
enormities and marks of degeneracy, but rather in a depen- 
dence on the animal part of human nature, in that want of 
freedom and independence, that want of coherence, those 
inconsistencies of the inward man, in which all folly and 
infatuation originate. 

The earnest ideal consists of the unity and harmonious 
blending of the sensual man with the mental, such as may be 
most clearly recognised in Sculpture, where the perfection of 
form is merely a symbol of mental perfection and the loftiest 
moral ideas, and where the body is wholly pervaded by soul, 
and spiritualized even to a glorious transfiguration. The 
merry or ludicrous ideal, on the other hand, consists in the 
perfect harmony and unison of the higher part of our nature, 
with the animal as the ruling principle. Reason and 



ALLEGORICAL AND POLITICAL SIGNIFICATION. 149 

understanding are represented as tte voluntary slaves of the 
senses. 

Hence we shall find that the very principle of Comedy 
necessarily occasioned that which in Aristophanes has given 
so much ojSence ; namely, his frequent allusions to the base 
necessities of the body, the wanton pictures of animal desire, 
which, in spite of all the restraints imposed on it by morality 
and decency, is always breaking loose before one can be aware 
of it. If we reflect a moment, we shall find that even in the 
present day, on our own stage, the infallible and inexhaust- 
ible source of the ludicrous is the same ungovernable impulses 
of sensuality in collision with higher duties; or cowardice, 
childish vanity, loquacity, gulosity, laziness, &c. Hence, in 
the weakness of old age, amorousness is the more laughable, 
as it is plain that it is not mere animal instinct, but that 
reason has only served to extend the dominion of the senses 
beyond their proper limits. In drunkenness, too, the real 
man places himself, in some degree, in the condition of the 
comic ideal. 

The fact that the Old Comedy introduced living characters 
on the stage, by name and with all circumstantiality, must not 
mislead us to infer that they actually did represent certain 
definite individuals. For such historical characters in the Old 
Comedy have always an allegorical signification, and represent 
a class ; and as their features were caricatures in the masks, 
so, in like manner, were their characters in the representation. 
But still this constant allusion to a proximate reality, which 
not only allowed the poet, in the character of the chorus, to 
converse with the public in a general way, but also to point 
the finger at certain individual spectators, was essential to this 
species of poetry. As Tragedy delights in harmonious unity. 
Comedy flourishes in a chaotic exuberance; it seeks out the 
most motley contrasts, and the unceasing play of cross pur- 
poses. It works up, therefore, the most singular, unheard-of, 
and even impossible incidents, with allusions to the well- 
known and special circumstances of the immediate locality 
and time. 

The comic poet, as well as the tragic, transports his 
characters into an ideal element : not, however, into a world 
subjected to necessity, but one where the caprice of inventive 
wit rules without check or restraint, and where all the laws 



150 THE COMIC CHORUS. 

of reality are suspended. He is at liberty, therefore, to invent 
an action as arbitrary and fantastic as possible; it may eyen 
be unconnected and unreal, if only it be calculated to place a 
circle of comic incidents and characters in the most glaring 
light. In this last respect, the work should, nay, must, have 
a leading aim, or it will otherwise be in want of keeping; 
and in this view also the comedies of Aristophanes may 
be considered as perfectly systematical. But then, to pre- 
serve the comic inspiration, this aim must be made a matter 
of diversion, and be concealed beneath a medley of all sorts 
of out-of-the-way matters. Comedy at its first commencement, 
namely, under the hands of its Doric founder, Epicharmus, 
borrowed its materials chiefly from the mythical world. Even 
in its maturity, to judge from the titles of many lost plays of 
Aristophanes and his contemporaries, it does not seem to have 
renounced this choice altogether, as at a later period, in the 
interval between the old and new comedy, it returned, for 
particular reasons, with a natural predilection to mythology. 
But as the contrast between the matter and form is here in its 
proper place, and nothing can be more thoroughly opposite to 
the ludicrous form of exhibition than the most important and 
serious concerns of men, public life and the state naturally 
became the peculiar subject-matter of the Old Comedy. It is, 
therefore, altogether political; and private and family life, 
beyond which the new never soars, was only introduced occa- 
sionally and indirectly, in so far as it might have a reference 
to public life. The Chorus is therefore essential to it, as 
being in some sort a representation of the public : it must by 
no means be considered as a mere accidental property, to 
be accounted for by the local origin of the Old Comedy; we 
may assign its existence to a more substantial reason — its 
necessity for a complete parody of the tragic form. It con- 
tributes also to the expression of that festal gladness of which 
Comedy was the most unrestrained effusion, for in all the 
national and religious festivals of the Greeks, choral songs, 
accompanied by dancing, were performed. The comic chorus 
transforms itself occasionally into such an expression of public 
joy, as, for instance, when the women who celebrate the 
Thesmophorise in the piece that bears that name, in the midst 
of the most amusing drolleries, begin to chant their melodious 
hymn, just as in a real festival, in honour of the presiding 



ITS PARABASIS. 151 

gods. At these times we meet witli such a display of sub- 
lime Ijiic poetrj^ that the passages may be transplanted into 
tragedy without any change or alteration whateA''er. There 
is, however, this deviation from the tragic model, that there 
are frequently, in the same comedy, several choruses which 
sometimes are present together, singing in response, or at 
other times come on alternately and drop oif, without the least 
general reference to each other. The most remarkable pecu- 
liarity, however, of the comic chorus is the Parahasis, an 
address to the spectators by the chorus, in the name, and as 
the representative of the poet, but having no connexion with 
the subject of the piece. Sometimes he enlarges on his own 
merits, and ridicules the pretensions of his rivals; at other 
times, availing himself of his right as an Athenian citizen, to 
speak on public affairs in every assembly of the people, he 
brings forward serious or ludicrous motions for the common 
good. The Parabasis must, strictly speaking, be considered 
as incongruous with the essence of dramatic representation; 
for in the drama the poet should always be behind his 
dramatic personages, who again ought to speak and act as if 
they were alone, and to take no perceptible notice of the 
spectators. Such intermixtures, therefore, destroy all tragic 
impression, but to the comic tone these intentional interrup- 
tions or intermezzos are welcome, even though they be in 
themselves more serious than the subject of the representation, 
because we are at such times unwilling to submit to the con- 
straint of a mental occupation which must perforce be kept 
up, for then it would assume the appearance of a task or obli- 
gation. The Parabasis may partly have owed its invention 
to the circumstance of the comic poets not having such ample 
materials as the tragic, for filling up the intervals of the 
action when the stage was empty, by sympathising and en- 
thusiastic odes. But it is, moreover, consistent with the 
essence of the Old Comedy, where not merely the subject, but 
the whole manner of treating it was sportive and jocular. 
The unlimited dominion of mirth and fun manifests itself 
even in this, that the dramatic form itself is not seriously 
adhered to, and that its laws are often suspended; just as in 
a droll disguise the masquerader sometimes ventures to lay 
aside the mask. The practice of throwing out allusions and 
hints to the pit is retained even in the comedy of the present 



152 AIM AND OBJECT OF TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 

day, and is often founa to be attended with great success, 
although unconditionally reprobated by many critics. I shall 
afterwards examine how far, and in what departments of 
comedy, these allusions are admissible. m 

To sum up in a few words the aim and object of Tragedylp 
and Comedy, we may observe, that as Tragedy, by painful ' 
emotions, elevates us to the most dignified views of humanity, 
being, in the words of Plato, " the imitation of the most beau- 
tiful and most excellent life;" Comedy, on the other hand, by 
its jocose and depreciatory view of all things, calls forth the 
most petulant hilarity. 



ARISTOPHANES : HIS CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST. 153 



LECTURE XII. 

Aristophanes — His Character as an Artist — Description and Character of 
his remaining Works — A Scene, translated from the Acharnce, by way 
of Appendix. 

Op the Old Comedy but one writer has come down to us, 
and we cannot, therefore^ in forming an estimate of his 
merits, enforce it by a comparison with other masters. Aris- 
tophanes had many predecessors, Magnes, Cratinus, Crates, 
and others ; he was indeed one of the latest of this school, for 
he outlived the Old Comedy. We have no reason, however, 
to believe that we witness in him its decline, as we do that of 
Tragedy in the case of the last tragedian; in all probability 
the Old Comedy was still rising in perfection, and he himself 
one of its most finished authors. It was very dificrent with 
the Cld Comedy and with Tragedy; the latter died a natural, 
and the former a violent death. Tragedy ceased to exist, 
because that species of poetry seemed to be exhausted, because 
it was abandoned, and because no one was now able to rise to 
the pitch of its elevation. Comedy was deprived by the hand 
of power of that unrestrained freedom which was necessary 
to its existence. Horace, in a few words, informs us of this 
catastrophe : " After these (Thespis and ^schylus) followed 
the Old Comedy, not without great merit; but its freedom 
degenerated into licentiousness, and into a violence which 
deserved to be checked by law\ The law was enacted, and 
the Chorus sunk into disgraceful silence as soon as it was 
deprived of the right to injure*." Towards the end of the Pe- 
loponnesian war, when a few individuals, in violation of the 
constitution, had assumed the supreme authority in Athens, a 
law was enacted, giving every person attacked by comic 

* Successit vetus his comedia, non sine multa 
Laude, sed in vitium libertas excidit, et vim 
Dignam lege regi : lex est accepta : chorusque 
Turpiter obticuit, sublato jure nocendi. 



154 ARISTOPHANES : MIDDLE COMEDY — ORIGIN. 

poets a remedy by law. Moreover, tlie introduction of real 
persons on tlie stage, or the use of such masks as bore a 
resembhince to their features, &c., was prohibited. This gave 
rise to what is called the Middle Comedy. The form still con- 
tinued much the same; and the representation, if not per- 
fectly allegorical, was nevertheless a parody. But the essence 
was taken away, and this species must have become insipid 
when it could no longer be seasoned by the salt of personal 
ridicule. Its whole attraction consisted in idealizing jocularly 
the reality that came nearest home to every one of the spec- 
tators, that is, in representing it under the light of the most 
preposterous perversity; and how was it possible now to lash 
even the general mismanagement of the state-aflfairs, if no 
ojQfence was to be given to individuals ? I cannot, therefore, 
agree with Horace in his opinion that the abuse gave rise to 
the restriction. The Old Comedy flourished together with 
Athenian liberty; and both were oppressed under the same 
circumstances, and by the same persons. So far were the 
calumnies of Aristophanes from having been the occasion of 
the death of Socrates, as, without a knowledge of history, 
many persons have thought proper to assert (for the Clouds 
were composed a great number of years before), that it was 
the very same revolutionary despotism that reduced to 
silence alike the sportive censure of Aristophanes, and also 
punished with death the graver animadversions of the incor- 
ruptible Socrates. Neither do we see that the persecuting 
jokes of Aristophanes were in any way detrimental to Euri- 
pides : the free people of Athens beheld alike with admiration 
the tragedies of the one, and their parody by the other, re- 
presented on the same stage ; they allowed every variety of 
talent to flourish undisturbed in the enjoyment of equal rights. 
Never did a sovereign, for such was the Athenian people, 
listen more good-humouredly to the most unwelcome truths, 
and even allow itself to be openly laughed at. And even if 
the abuses in the public administration were not by these 
means corrected, still it was a grand point that this unsparing 
exposure of them was tolerated. Besides, Aristophanes always 
shows himself a zealous patriot; the powerful demagogues 
whom he attacks are the same persons that the grave Thucy- 
dides describes as so pernicious. In the midst of civil war_, 
which destroyed for ever the prosperity of Greece, he was 



ARISTOPHANES : HIS REPULSIVENESS CONSIDERED. 155 

ever counselling peace, and everywhere recommended the 
simplicity and austerity of the ancient manners. So much for 
the political import of the Old Comedy. 

But Aristophanes, I hear it said, was an immoral buffoon. 
Yes, among other things, he was that also ; and we are by no 
means disposed to justify the man who, with such great 
talents, could yet sink so very low, whether it was to gratify 
his own coarse propensities, or from a supposed necessity of 
winning the favour of the populace, that he might be able to 
tell them bold and unpleasant truths. We know at least that 
he boasts of having been much more sparing than his rivals 
in the use of obscene jests, to gain the laughter of the mob, 
and of having, in this respect, carried his art to perfec- 
tion. Not to be unjust towards him, we must judge of all 
that appears so repulsive to us, not by modern ideas, but by 
the opinions of his own age and nation. On certain subjects 
the morals of the ancients were very different from ours, and 
of a much freer character. This arose from the very nature 
of their religion, which was a real worship of Nature, and had 
sanctioned many public customs grossly injurious to decency. 
Besides, from the very retired manner in which the women 
lived*, while the men were almost constantly together, the 

* This brings us to the consideration of the question so much agitated 
by antiquaries, whether the Grecian women were present at the represen- 
tation of plays in general, and more especially of comedies. With respect 
to tragedy, I think the question must be answered ia the aiBrmative, since 
the story about the Eumenides of JEschylus could not have been invented 
with any degree of propriety, had women never visited the theatre. More- 
over, there is a passage in Plato (De Leg., lib. ii. p. 658, D.), in which 
he mentions the predilection educated women evince for tragical com- 
position. Lastly, Julius Pollux, among the technical expressions belong- 
ing to the theatre, mentions the Greek word for a spectatress. But in the 
case of the old comedy, I should be inclined to think that they were not 
present. However, its indecency alone does not appear to be a decisive 
proof. Even in the religious festivals the eyes of the women must have 
been exposed to sights of gross indecency. But in the numerous ad- 
dresses of Aristophanes to the spectators, even where he distinguishes 
them according to their respective ages and otherwise, we never obsei*ve 
any mention of spectatresses, and the poet would hardly have omitted the 
opportunity which this afforded him for some witticism or joke. The only 
passage with which I am acquainted, whence any conclusion may be 
drawn in favour of the presence of women, is Paa^, v. 963 — 967. But 
stiU it remains doubtful, and I recommend it to the consideration of the 
critic. — Author. 



156 ARISTOPHANES : PLATo's TESTIMONY. 

language of conversation contracted a certain coarseness, as is 
always tlie case under similar circumstances. In modern 
Europe, since the origin of chivalry, women have given the 
tone to social life, and to the respectful homage which we 
yield to them, we owe the prevalence of a nobler morality in 
conversation, in the fine arts, aud in poetry. Besides, the 
ancient comic writers, who took the world as they found it, 
had before their eyes a very great degree of corruption of 
morals. 

The most honourable testimony in favour of Aristophanes 
is that of the sage Plato, who in an epigram says, that the 
Graces chose his soul for their abode, who was constantly 
reading him, and transmitted the Clouds, (this very play, in 
which, with the meshes of the sophists, philosophy itself, and 
even his master Socrates, was attacked), to Dionysius the 
elder, with the remark, that from it he would be best able to 
understand the state of things at Athens. He could hardly 
mean merely that the play was a proof of the unbridled 
democratic freedom which prevailed in Athens; but must 
have intended it as an acknowledgment of the poet's pro- 
found knowledge of the world, and his insight into the whole 
machinery of the civil constitution. Plato has also admirably 
characterised him in his Symposium, where he puts into his 
mouth a speech on love, which Aristophanes, far from every 
thing like high enthusiasm, considers merely in a sensual 
view. His description of it is, however, equally bold and 
ingenious. 

We might apply to the pieces of Aristophanes the motto of 
a pleasant and acute adventurer in Goethe : " Mad, but 
clever." In them we are best enabled to conceive why the 
Dramatic Art in general was consecrated to Bacchus : it is 
the intoxication of poetry, the Bacchanalia of fun. This 
faculty will at times assert its rights as well as others ; and 
hence several nations have set apart certain festivals, such as 
Saturnalia, Carnivals, &c., in which the people may give 
themselves altogether up to frolicsome follies, that when once 
the fit is over, they may for the rest of the year remain quiet, 
and apply themselves to serious business. The Old Comedy is 
a general masquerade of the world, during which much passes 
that is not authorised by the ordinary rules of propriety; but 
during which much also that is diverting, witty, and even in- 



Aristophanes: structure of his versification. 157 

structive, is manifested, wliich would uever be heard of with- 
out this momentary breaking up of the barricades of precision. 
However vulgar and even corrupt Aristophanes may have 
been in his own personal propensities, and however offensive 
his jokes are to good manners and good taste, we cannot deny 
to him, both in the general plan and execution of his poems, 
the praise of carefulness, and the masterly skill of a finished 
artist. His language is extremely polished, the purest Atti- 
cism reigns in it throughout, and with the greatest dexterity 
he adapts it to every tone, from the most familiar dialogue up 
to the high elevation of the Dithyrambic ode. We cannot 
doubt that he would have been eminently successful in grave 
poetry, when we see how at times with capricious wantonness 
he lavishes it only to destroy at the next moment the impres- 
sion he has made. The elegant choice of the language becomes 
only the more attractive from the contrast in which it is occa- 
sionally displayed by him ; for he not only indulges at times 
in the rudest expressions of the people, the different dialects, 
and even in the broken Greek of barbarians, but he extends 
the same arbitrary power which he exercised over nature and 
human affairs, to language itself, and by composition, allusion 
to names of persons, or imitation of particular sounds, coins 
the strangest words imaginable. The structure of his versifi- 
cation is not less artificial than that of the tragedians ; he uses 
the same forms, but differently modified : his object is ease 
and variety, instead of gravity and dignity; but amidst all 
this apparent irregularity, he still adheres with great accuracy 
to the laws of metrical composition. As Aristophanes, in the 
exercise of his separate but infinitely varied and versatile art, 
appears to me to have displayed the richest development of 
almost every poetical talent, so also whenever I read his 
works I am no less astonished at the extraordinary capacity 
of his hearers, which the very nature of them presupposes. 
We might, indeed, expect from the citizens of a popular 
government an intimate acquaintance with the history and 
constitution of their country, with public events and trans- 
actions, with the personal circumstance of all their contempo- 
raries of any note or consequence. But besides all this, Aris- 
tophanes required of his auditory a cultivated poetical taste ; 
to understand his parodies, they must have almost every word 
of the tragical master-pieces by heart. And what quick- 



158 ARISTOPHANES: THE ATHENIANS. 

ness of perception was requisite to catch in passing the light- 
est and most covert irony, the most unexpected sallies and 
strangest allusions, which are frequently denoted by the mere 
twisting of a syllable ! We may boldly affirm, that notwith- 
standing all the explanations which have come down to us — 
notwithstanding the accumulation of learning which has been 
spent upon it, one-half of the wit of A ristophanes is altogether 
lost to the moderns. Nothing but the incredible acuteness 
and vivacity of the Athenian intellect could make it conceiv- 
able that these comedies which, with all their farcical drol- 
leries, do, nevertheless, all the while bear upon the most grave 
interests of human life, could ever have formed a source of 
popular amusement. We may envy the poet who could 
reckon on so clever and accomplished a public; but this was 
in truth a very dangerous advantage. Spectators whose 
understandings were so quick, would not be easily pleased. 
Thus Aristophanes complains of the too fastidious taste of the 
Athenians, with whom the most admired of his predecessors 
were immediately out of favour as soon as the slightest trace 
of a falling off in their mental powers was perceivable. On 
the other hand, he allows that the other Greeks could not 
bear the slightest comparison with them in a knowledge of 
the Dramatic Art. Even genius in this department strove to 
excel at Athens, and here, too, the competition was confined 
within the narrow period of a few festivals, during which the 
people always expected to see something new, of which there 
was always a plentiful supply. The prizes (on which all 
depended, there being no other means of gaining publicity) 
were distributed after a single representation. We may easily 
imagine, therefore, the state of perfection to which this would 
be carried under the directing care of the poet. If we also 
take into consideration the high state of the co-operating 
arts, the utmost distinctness of delivery (both in speaking and 
singing,) of the most finished poetry, as well as the magnifi- 
cence and vast size of the theatre, we shall then have some 
idea of a theatrical treat, the like of which has never since 
been offered to the world. 

Although, among the remaining works of Aristophanes, we 
have several of his earliest pieces, they all bear the stamp of 
equal maturity. He had, in fact, been long labouring in 
silence to perfect himself in the exercise of an art which he 



ARISTOPHANES: CHARACTER OF HIS WORKS. 159 

conceived to be of all others tlie most difficult; nay, from 
diffidence in his own power, (or, to use his own words, like a 
young girl who consigns to the care of others the child of her 
secret love,) he even brought out his earliest pieces under 
others' names. He appeared for the first time without this 
disguise with the Knights, and here he displayed the un- 
daunted resolution of a comedian, by an open assault on po- 
pular opinion. His object was nothing less than the overthrow 
of Cleon, who, after the death of Pericles, was at the head 
of all state affairs, a promoter of war, and a worthless man 
of very ordinary abilities, but at the same time the idol of an 
infatuated people. The only opponents of Cleon were the 
rich proprietors, who constituted the class of horsemen or 
knights : these Aristophanes in the strongest manner made of 
bis party, by forming the chorus of them. He had the pru- 
dence never to name Cleon, though he portrayed him in such 
a way that it was impossible to mistake bim. Yet such was 
the dread entertained of Cleon and his faction, that no mask- 
maker would venture to execute his likeness : the poet, there- 
fore, resolved to act the part himself, merely painting his face. 
We may easily imagine the storms and tumults which this 
representation must have excited among the assembled crowd ; 
however, the bold and well-concerted efforts of the poet were 
crowned with success : his piece gained the prize. He was 
proud of this feat of theatrical heroism, and often alludes 
with a feeling of satisfaction to the Herculean valour with 
which he first combated the mighty monster. No one of his 
plays, perhaps, is more historical and political; and its rhe- 
torical power in exciting our indignation is almost irresistible : 
it is a true dramatic Philippic. However, in point of amuse- 
ment and invention, it does not appear to me the most for- 
tunate. The thought of the serious danger which he was 
incurring may possibly have disposed him to a more serious 
tone than was suitable to comedy, or stung, perhaps, by the 
persecution he had already suffered from Cleon, he may, per- 
haps, have vented his rage in too Archilochean a style. When 
the storm of cutting invective has somewhat spent itself, we 
have then several droll scenes, such us that where the two 
demagogues, the leather-dealer (that is, Cleon) and the 
sausage-seller, vie with each other by adulation, hj oracle- 
quoting, and by dainty tit-bits, to gain the favour of Demos, 



160 ARISTOPHANES : HIS PLAYS OF PEACE. 

a personification of the people, who has become childish 
through age, a scene humorous in the highest degree; and 
the piece ends with a triumphal rejoicing, which may almost 
be said to be affecting, when the scene changes from the Pnyx, 
the place where the people assembled, to the majestic Propy- 
Isea, when Demos, who has been wonderfully restored to a 
second youth, comes forward in the garb of an ancient 
Athenian, and shows that with his youthful vigour, he has 
also recovered the olden sentiments of the days of Mara- 
thon. 

With the exception of this attack on Cleon, and with the 
exception also of the attacks on Euripides, whom he seems to 
have pursued with the most unrelenting perseverance, the 
other pieces of Aristophanes are not so exclusively pointed 
against individuals. They have always a general, and for 
the most part a very important aim, which the poet, with all 
his turnings, digressions, and odd medleys, never loses sight 
of. The Peace, the Acharnce, and the Lysistrata, with many 
turns, still all recommend peace ; and one object of the Eccle- 
siazusce, or Women in Parliament, of the Thesmophoriazusw, or 
Women heeinng the Festival of the Thesmophorice, and of Lysis- 
trata, is to throw ridicule on the relations and the manners of 
the female sex. In the Clouds he laughs at the metaphysics 
of the Sophists, in the Wasps at the mania of the Athenians for 
hearing and determining law-suits ; the subject of the Frogs 
Is the decline of the tragic art, and Plutus is an allegory on 
the unjust distribution of wealth. The Birds are, of all his 
pieces, the one of which the aim is the least apparent, and it 
is on that very account one of the most diverting. 

Peace begins in the most spirited and lively manner; the 
peace-loving Trygseus rides on a dung-beetle to heaven in the 
manner of Bellerophon ; "War, a desolating giant, with his com- 
rade Riot, alone, in place of all the other gods, inhabits Olym- 
pus, and there pounds the cities of men in a great mortar, mak- 
ing use of the most celebrated generals for pestles. The Goddess 
Peace lies buried in a deep well, out of which she is hauled 
lip by ropes, through the united exertions of all the states of 
Greece: all these ingenious and fanciful inventions are cal- 
culated to produce the most ludicrous effect. Afterwards^ 
however, the play is not sustained at an equal elevation ; no- 
thing remains but to sacrifice; and to carouse in honour of the 




ARISTOPHANES : HIS ACHARN^, 161 

recovered Goddess of Peace, when the importunate visits of 
sucli persons as found their advantage in war form, indeed, 
an entertainment pleasant enough, but by no means corres- 
pondent to the expectations which the commencement gives 
rise to. We have, in this piece, an additional example to 
prove that the ancient comic writers not only changed the 
decoration during the intervals, when the stage was empty, 
but also while an actor was in sight. The scene changes 
from Attica to Olympus, while Trygasus is suspended in the 
air on his beetle, and calls anxiously to the director of the 
machinery to take care that he does not break his neck. 
His descent into the orchestra afterwards denotes his return 
to the earth. It was possible to overlook the liberties taken 
by the tragedians, according as their subject might require it, 
with the Unities of Place and Time, on which such ridiculous 
stress has been laid by many of the moderns, but the bold 
manner in which the old comic writer subjects these mere 
externalities to his sportive caprice is so striking, that it must 
enforce itself on the most short-sighted observers : and yet in 
all the treatises on the constitution of the Greek stage, due 
respect has never yet been paid to it. 

The Acharnians, an earlier piece,^' appears to me to possess 
a much higher excellence than Peace, on account of the con- 
tinual progress of the story, and the increasing drollery, which 
at last ends in a downright Bacchanalian uproar. Dikaiopo- 
lis, the honest citizen, enraged at the base artifices by which 
the people are deluded, and by which they are induced to 
reject all proposals for peace, sends an embassy to Lacedscmon, 
and concludes a separate treaty for himself and his family. He 
then retires to the country, and, in spite of all assaults, encloses 
a piece of ground before his house, within which there is a 
peaceful market for the people of the neighbouring states, 
while the rest of the country is sufiering from the calamities of 
war. The blessings of peace are represented most temptingly 
to hungry stomachs : the fat Boeotian brings his delicious eels 
and poultry for sale, and nothing is thought of but feasting 
and carousing. Lamachus, the celebrated general, who lives 

* The Didascaliae place it in the year before the Knights. It is, 
therefore, the earliest of the extant pieces of Aristophanes, and the only 
one of those which he brought out under a borrowed name, that has come 
down to us. 

L 



162 ARISTOPHANES: LYSISTRATA — ECCLESIAZUS^. 



n 



on tlie other side, is, in consequence of a sudden inroad of the 
enemy, called away to defend the frontiers ; Dikaiopolis, on 
the other hand, is invited by his neighbours to a feast, -where 
every one brings his own scot. Preparations military and 
preparations culinary are now carried on with equal industry 
and alacrity; here they seize the lance, there the spit ; here the 
armour rings, there the wine-flagon ; there they are feathering 
helmets, here they are plucking thrushes. Shortly afterwards 
Lamachus returns, supported by two of his comrades, with a 
broken head and a lame foot, and from the other side Dikaio- 
polis is brought in drunk, and led by two good-natured dam- 
sels. The lamentations of the one are perpetually mimicked 
and ridiculed in the rejoicings of the other; and with this 
contrast, which is carried to the very utmost limit, the play 
ends. 

Lysistrata is in such bad repute, that we must mention it 
lightly and rapidly, just as we would tread over hot embers. 
According to the story of the poet, the women have taken it 
into their heads to compel their husbands, by a severe resolu- 
tion, to make peace. Under the direction of a clever leader 
they organize a conspiracy for this purpose throughout all 
Greece, and at the same time gain possession in Athens of the 
fortified Acropolis. The terrible plight the men are reduced 
to by this separation gives rise to the most laughable scenes ; 
plenipotentiaries appear from the two hostile powers, and 
peace is speedily concluded under the management of the sage 
Lysistrata. Notwithstanding the mad indecencies which are 
contained in the piece, its purpose, when stript of these, is 
upon the whole very innocent : the longing for the enjoyment 
of domestic joys, so often interrupted by the absence of the 
husbands, is to be the means of putting an end to the 
calamitous war by which Greece had so long been torn in 
pieces. In particular, the honest bluntness of the Lacedsemo- 
nians is inimitably portrayed. 

The Ecdesiazusce is in like manner a picture of woman's 
ascendency, but one much more depraved than the former. 
In the dress of men the women steal into the public assembly, 
and by means of the majority of A^oices which they have thus 
surreptitiously obtained, they decree a new ccnstitution, in 
which there is to be a community of goods and of women. 
This is a satire on the ideal republics of the philosophers, with 



ARISTOPHANES: THE THESMOPHORIAZUS^. 163 

similar laws; Protagoras had projected such before Plato. 
The comedy appears to me to labour under the very same fault 
as the Peace: the introduction, the secret assembly of the 
women, their rehearsal of their parts as men, the description 
of the popular assembly, are all handled in the most masterly 
manner; but towards the middle the action stands still. 
Nothing remains but the representation of the perplexities and 
confusion which arise from the different communities, especially 
the community of women, and from the prescribed equality of 
rights in love both for the old and ugly, and for the young 
and beautiful. These perplexities are pleasant enough, but 
they turn too much on a repetition of the same joke. Generally 
speaking, the old allegorical comedy is in its progress exposed 
to the danger of sinking. When we begin with turning the 
world upside down, the most wonderful incidents follow one 
another as a matter of course, but they are apt to appear 
petty and insignificant when compared with the decisive 
strokes of fun in the commencement. 

The Thesmophoriazusce has a proper intrigue, a knot which 
is not loosed till the conclusion, and in this possesses therefore 
a great advantage. Euripides, on account of the well-known 
hatred of women displayed in his tragedies, is accused and 
condemned at the festival of the Thesmophoriag, at which 
women only were admitted. After a fruitless attempt to in- 
duce the effeminate poet Agathon to undertake the hazardous 
experiment, Euripides prevails on his brother-in-law, Mnesilo- 
chus, who was somewhat advanced in years, to disguise him- 
self as a woman, that under this assumed appearance he may 
plead his cause. The manner in which he does this gives rise 
to suspicions, and he is discovered to be a man ; he flies to the 
altar for refuge, and to secure himself still more from the im- 
pending danger, he snatches a child from the arms of one of 
the women, and threatens to kill it if they do not let him 
alone. As he attempts to strangle it, it turns out to be a 
leather wine-flask wrapped up like a child. Euripides now 
appears in a number of different shapes to save his friend : at 
one time he is Menelaus, who finds Helen again in Egjrpt ; at 
another time he is Echo, helping the chained Andromeda to 
pour out her lamentations, and immediately after he appears 
as Perseus, about to release her from the rock. At length he 
succeeds in rescuing Mnesilochus, who is fastened to a sort of 

L 2 



164 ARISTOPHANES: THE CLOUDS. 

pillory, by assuming the character of a procuress, and enticing 
away the officer of justice who has charge of him, a simple 
barbarian, by the charms of a female flute-player. These 
parodied scenes, composed almost entirely in the very words 
of the tragedies, are inimitable. Whenever Euripides is intro- 
duced, we may always, generally speaking, lay our account 
with having the most ingenious and apposite ridicule; it seems 
as if the mind of Aristophanes possessed a peculiar and specific 
power of giving a comic turn to the poetry of this tragedian. 

The Clouds is well known, but yet, for the most part, has 
not been duly understood or appreciated. Its object is to 
show that the fondness for philosophical subtleties had led to- 
a neglect of warlike exercises, that speculation only served to 
shake the foundations of religion and morals, and that by the 
arts of sophistry, every duty was rendered doubtful, and the 
worse cause frequently came off victorious. The Clouds 
themselves, as the chorus of the piece (for the poet converts 
these substances into persons, and dresses them out strangely 
enough), are an allegory on the metaphysical speculations 
which do not rest on the ground of experience, but float about 
without any definite shape or body, in the region of possibi- 
lities. We may observe in general that it is one of the 
peculiarities of the wit of Aristophanes to take a metaphor 
literally, and to exhibit it in this light before the eyes of the 
spectators. Of a man addicted to unintelligible reveries, it is 
a common way of speaking to say that he is up in the clouds, 
and accordingly Socrates makes his first appearance actually 
descending from the air in a basket. Whether this applies 
exactly to him is another question; but we have reason to 
believe that the philosophy of Socrates was very ideal, and 
that it was by no means so limited to popular and practical 
matters as Xenophon would have us believe But why has 
Aristophanes personified the sophistical metaphysics by the 
venerable Socrates, who was himself a determined opponent of 
the Sophists 1 There was probably some personal grudge at 
the bottom of this, and we do not attempt to justify it; but 
the choice of the name by no means diminishes the merit of 
the picture itself. Aristophanes declares this play to be the 
most elaborate of all his works : but in such expressions we 
are not always to take him exactly at his word. On all occa- 
sions, and without the least hesitation^ he lavishes upon him- 



ARISTOPHANES: THE FROGS. 165 

self the most extravagant praises ; and tliis must be considered 
a feature of the licence of comedy. However, the Clouds was 
unfavourably received, and twice unsuccessfully competed for 
the prize. 

The Frogs, as we have already said, has for its subject the de- 
cline of Tragic Art. Euripides was dead, as well as Sophocles 
and Agathon, and none but poets of the second rank were now 
remaining. Bacchus misses Euripides, and determines to bring 
him back from the infernal world. In this he imitates Hercules, 
but although furnished with that hero's lion-skin and club, in 
sentiments he is very unlike him, and as a dastardly voluptuary 
affords us much matter for laughter Here we have a cha- 
racteristic specimen of the audacity of Aristophanes : he does 
not even spare the patron of his own art, in whose honour 
this very play was exhibited. It was thought that the gods 
understood a joke as well, if not better, than men. Bacchus 
rows himself over the Acherusian lake, where the frogs 
merrily greet him with their melodious croakings. The 
proper chorus, however, consists of the shades of those initi- 
ated in the Eleusinian mysteries, and odes of surpassing 
beauty are put in their mouths, ^schylus had hitherto occu- 
pied the tragic throne in the world below, but Euripides 
wants to eject him. Pluto presides, but appoints Bacchus to 
determine this great controversy; the two poets, the sub- 
limely wrathful J^schylus, and the subtle and conceited Euri- 
pides, stand opposite each other and deliver specimens of 
their poetical powers ; they sing, they declaim against each 
other, and in all their peculiar traits are characterised in 
masterly style. At last a balance is brought, on which each 
lays a verse ; but notwithstanding all the efforts of Euripides 
to produce ponderous lines, those of iEschylus always make 
the scale of his rival to kick the beam. At last the latter 
becomes impatient of the contest, and proposes that Euripides 
himself, with all his works, his wife, children, Cephisophon 
and all, shall get into one scale, and he will only lay against 
them in the other two verses. Bacchus in the mean time has 
become a convert to the merits of -^schylus, and although he 
had sworn to Euripides that he would take him back with 
him from the lower world, he dismisses him with a parody of 
one of his own verses in Hii^'polytus : 

My tongue hath sworn, I however make choice of ^schylus. 



166 ARISTOPHANES: THE WASPS — THE BIRDS. 

j3^scliy]us consequently returns to the living world, and resigns 
the tragic throne in his absence to Sophocles. 

The observation on the changes of place, which I made 
when mentioning Peace, may be here repeated. The scene is 
first at Thebes, of which tjoth Bacchus and Hercules were 
natives; afterwards the stage is changed, without its ever 
being left by Bacchus, to the nether shore of the Acherusian 
lake, which must have been represented by the sunken space 
of the orchestra, and it was not till Bacchus landed at the 
other end of the logeum that the scenery represented the 
infernal world, with the palace of Pluto in the back-ground. 
This is not a mere conjecture, it is expressl}'- stated by the old 
scholiast. 

The Wasps is, in my opinion, the feeblest of Aristophanes' 
plays. The subject is too limited, the folly it ridicules 
appears a disease of too singular a description, without a suf- 
ficient universality of application, and the action is too much 
drawn out. The poet himself speaks this time in very 
modest language of his means of entertainment, and does not 
even promise us immoderate laughter. 

On the other hand, the Birds transports us by one of the 
boldest and richest inventions into the kingdom of the fantas- 
tically wonderful, and delights us with a display of the 
gayest hilarity : it is a joyous-winged and gay-plumed crea- 
tion. I cannot concur with the old critic in thinking that we 
have in this work a universal and undisguised satire on the 
corruptions of the Athenian state, and of all human society. 
It seems rather a harmless display of merry pranks, which 
hit alike at gods and men without any particular object in 
view. Whatever was remarkable about birds in natural his- 
tory, in mythology, in the doctrine of divination, in the fables 
of ^sop, or even in jDroverbial expressions, has been inge- 
niously drawn to his purpose by the poet; who OA'en goes 
back to cosmogony, and shows that at first the raven- winged 
Night laid a wind-egg, out of which the lovely Eros, with 
golden pinions (without doubt a bird), soared aloft, and 
thereupon gave birth to all things. Two fugitives of the 
human race fall into the domain of the birds, who resolve to 
revenge themselves on them for the numerous cruelties which 
they have suffered : the two men contrive to save themselves 
by proving the pre-eminency of the birds over all other crea- 



ARISTOPHANES: CRATINUS — EUPOLIS. 167 

tiires, and they advise them to collect all their scattered 
powers into one immense state; the wondrous city, Cloud- 
cuckootown, is then built above the earth; all sorts of unbid- 
den guests, priests, poets, soothsayers, geometers, lawyers, 
sycophants, wish to nestle in the new state, but are driven 
out; new gods are appointed, naturally enough, after the 
image of the birds, as those of men bore a resemblance to man. 
Olympus is walled up against the old gods, so that no odour 
of sacrifices can reach them ; in their emergency^ they send an 
embassy, consisting of the voracious Hercules, Neptune, who 
swears according to the common formula, by Neptune, and 
a Thracian god, who is not very familiar with Greek, but 
speaks a sort of mixed jargon; they are, however, under the 
necessity of submitting to any conditions they can get, and 
the sovereignty of the world is left to the birds. However 
much all this resembles a mere farcical fairy tale, it may be 
said, however, to have a philosophical signification, in thus 
taking a sort of bird's-eye view of all things, seeing that most 
of our ideas are only true in a human point of view. 

The old critics were of opinion that Cratinus was powerful 
in that biting satire which makes its attack without disguise, 
but that he was deficient in a pleasant humour, also that he 
wanted the skill to develope a striking subject to the best 
advantage, and to fill up his pieces with the necessary details. 
Eupolis they tell us was agreeable in his jokes, and ingenious 
in covert allusions, so that he never needed the assistance 
of parabases to say whatever he wished, but that he was 
deficient in satiric power. But Aristophanes, they add, by a 
happy medium, united the excellencies of both, and that in 
him we have satire and pleasantry combined in due proportion 
and attractive manner. From these statements I conceive 
myself justified in assuming that among the pieces of Aristo- 
phanes, the Knights is the most in the style of Cratinus, and 
the Birds in that of Eupolis ; and that he had their respective 
manners in view when he composed these pieces. For al- 
though he boasts of his independent originality, and of his 
never borrowing anything from others, it was hardly possible 
that among such distinguished contemporary artists, all re- 
ciprocal influence shouid be excluded. If this opinion be 
well founded, we have to lament the loss of the works of 
Cratinus, perhaps principally on account of the light they 



168 Aristophanes: plutus, his last comedy. 

would have thrown on the manners of the times, and the 
knowledge they might have afforded of the Athenian con- 
stitution, while the loss of the works of Eupolis is to be 
regretted, chiefly for the comic form in which they were 
delivered. 

Plutus was one of the earlier pieces of the poet, but as we 
have it, it is one of his last works ; for the first piece was 
afterwards recast by him. In its essence it belongs to the Old 
Comedy, but in the sparingness of personal satire, and in the 
mild tone which prevails throughout, we may trace an ap- 
proximation to the Middle Comedy. The Old Comedy indeed 
had not yet received its death-blow from a formal enactment, 
but even at this date Aristophanes may have deemed it 
prudent to avoid a full exercise of the democratic privilege ot 
comedy. It has even been said (perhaps without any foun- 
dation, as the circumstance has been denied by others) that 
Alcibiades ordered Eupolis to be drowned on account of a 
piece which he had aimed at him. Dangers of this description 
would repress the most ardent zeal of authorship : it is but 
fair that those who seek to afford pleasure to their fellow- 
citizens should at least be secure of their life. 



169 



APPENDIX 



TWELFTH LECTURE. 



As we do not, so far as I know, possess as yet a satisfactory 
poetical translation of Aristophanes, and as tlie whole works 
of this author must, for many reasons, ever remain untrans- 
latable, I have been induced to lay before my readers the 
scene in the A charnians where Euripides makes his appear- 
ance ; not that this play does not contain many other scenes 
of equal, if not superior merit, but because it relates to 
the character of this tragedian as an artist, and is both free 
from indecency, and, moreover, easily understood. 

The Acharnians, country-people of Attica, who have greatly 
suffered from the enemy, are highly enraged at Dikaiopolis 
for concluding a peace with the Lacedaemonians, and deter- 
mine to stone him. He undertakes to speak in defence of 
the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he 
is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. 
In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend 
him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in 
the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the 
bouse of the tragic poet to occupy the middle of the back 
scene. 



Dikaiopolis. 
'Tis time I pluck up all my courage then, 
And pay a visit to Euripides. 
Boy, boy I 

Cephisophon. 
Who's there ? 

Dikaiopolis. 

Is Euripides within ? 



170 APPE^'DIX TO THE TWELFTH LECTURE. 

Cephisophon. 
Within, and not witliin : Can'st fathom that ? 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

How within, yet not within ? 

Cephisophon. 

'Tis true, old fellow. 
His mind is out collecting dainty verses*. 
And not witliin. But he's himself aloft 
Writing a tragedy. 

DiKAIOPOLlS. 

Happy Euripides, 
Whose servant here can give such wittv answers. 
CaU him. 

Cephisophon, 
It may not be. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

I say, you must though — 
For hence I will not budge, but knock the door down. 
Euripides, Euripides, my darlingf ! 
Heai' me, at least, if deaf to all besides. 
'Tis Dikaiopolis of ChoHis calls you. 

Euripides. 

I have not time. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

A.t least roll roundj. 

EUKIPIDES. 

I can't §. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

You must. 
Euripides, 
Well, I'll roll round. Come down I can't; I'm busy. 

DiKAIPOLIS. 

Euripides ! 

Euripides. 
"What would'st thou with thy bawling. 



* The Greek diminutive sttvXKix is here correctly expressed by the 
German verse hen, but versicle would not be tolerated in Enghsh. — ^Trans . 

t EOgiTTi^tov — in the German Euripidelein. — Trans, 

J A technical expression from the Encyclema, which was thrust out. 

§ Euripides appears in the upper story ; but as in an altana, or sitting 
in an open gallery. 



4PPEN1HX TO THE TWELFTH LECTURE. 171 

DiKAIOPOLIS 

What ! you compose aloft and not below. 
No wonder if your muse's bantlings halt. 
Again, those rags and cloak right tragical, 
The very garb for sketching beggars in ! 
But sweet Euripides, a boon, I pray thee. 
Give me the moving rags of some old play ; 
I've a long speech to make before the Chorus, 
And if I falter, why the forfeit's death. 

Euripides. 
What rags will suit you ? Those in wliich old CEneus, 
That hapless wight, went through his bitter conflict ? 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

Not CEneus, no, — ^but one still sorrier. 

Euripides. 
Those of blind Phoenix ? 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

No, not Phoenix either : 
But another, more wretched still than Phoenix. 

Euripides. 

Whose sorry tatters can the fellow want ? 

'Tis Philoctetes' sure ! You mean that beggar. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

No ; but a person still more beggarly. 

Euripides. 
I have it. You want the sorry garments 
Bellerophon, the lame man, used to wear. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

No, — not Bellerophon. Though the man I mean 
Was lame, importunate, and bold of speech. 

Euripides. 
I know. 'Tis Telephus the Mysian. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 



Yes, Telephus : lend me his rags I pray you. 

Euripides. 
Ho, boy ! Give him the rags of Telephus. 
There lie they ; just upon Thyestes' rags. 
And under those of Ino. 



Right. 



Cephisophon. 

Here ! take them. 



172 APPENDIX TO THE TWELFTH LECTURE, 

DiKAiopoLis {putting them on). 
Now Jove ! who lookest on, and see'st through all*, 
Your blessing, while thus wretchedly I garb me. 
Pr'ythee, Eui'ipides, a further boon. 
It goes, I thinic, together with these rags : 
The little Mysian bonnet for my head ; 
*' For sooth to-day I must put on the beggar, 
And be still what I am, and yet not seem sof." 
The audience here may know me who I am. 
But hke poor fools the chorus stand unwitting, 
"While I trick them with my flowers of rhetoric. 

Euripides. 
A rai-e device, i'faith ! Take it and welcome. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

** For thee, my blessing ; for Telephus, my thoughtsf." 
'Tis well ; already, words flow thick and fast. 
Oh ! I had near forgot — A beggar's staff", I pray. 

Euripides. 
Here, take one, and thyself too from these doors. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

{Aside.) See'st thou, my soul, — he'd di-ive thee from his door 

Still lacking many things. Become at once 

A supple, oily beggar. (Aloud.) Good Euripides, 

Lend me a basket, pray; — though the bottom's 

Scorch'd, 'twill do. 

Euripides. 
Poor wretch ! A basket ? What's thy need on't ? 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

No need beyond the simple wish to have it. 

Euripides. 
You're getting troublesome. Come pack — be off". 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

(^Aside.) Faugh ! Faugh ! 

{Aloud.) May heaven prosper thee as — thy good motherj. 

Euripides. 
Be off', I say ! 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

Not till thou grant'st my prayer. 
Only a little cup with broken rim. 

* Alluding to the holes in the mantle which he holds up to the light, 
t These lines are from Euripides' tragedy of Telephus. 
t An allusion (which a few lines lower is again repeated) to his mother 
as a poor retailer of vegetables. 



APPENDIX TO THE TWELFTH LECTURE. 173 

Euripides. 
Take it and go ; for know you're quite a plague. 

DiKAIOPOLTS. 

(Aside.) Knows he how great a pest he is himself? 
(Aloud.) But, my Euripides ! my sweet ! one tiling more : 
Give me a cracked pipkin stopped with sponge. 

Euripides. 
The man would rob me of a tragedy complete. 
There — take it, and begone. 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

Well ! I am going. 
Yet what to do ? One thing I lack, whose want 
Undoes me. Good, sweet Euripides ! 
Grant me but this, I'll ask no more, but go — 
Some cabbage-leaves — a few just in my basket ! 

Euripides. 
You'll ruin me. See there ! A whole play's gone ! 

DiKAIOPOLIS (seemingly going ojf}. 
Nothing more now. I'm really off. I am, I own, 
A bore, wanting in tact to please the great. 
Woe's me ! Was ever such a wretch ? Alas ! 
I have forgot the very chiefest thing of all. 

Hear me, Euripides, my dear ! my darling. _ 

Choicest ills betide me ! if e'er I ask 
Aught more than this ; but one — this one alone : 
Throw me a pot-herb from thy mother's stock. 

Euripides. 
The fellow would insult me — shut the door. 

(The Encyclema revolves, and Euripides and Cephisophon retire.^ 

DiKAIOPOLIS. 

Soul of me, thou must go without a pot-herb ! 
Wist thou what conflict thou must soon contend in 
To proffer speech and full defence for Sparta ? 
Forward, my soul ! the barriers are before thee. 
What, dost loiter ? hast not imbibed Euripides ? 
And yet I blame thee not. Courage, sad heart ! 
And forward, though it be to lay thy head 
Upon the block. Rouse thee, and speak thy mind. 
Forward there ! forward again ! bravely heart, bravely. 



17-4 THE 3IIDDLE COMEDY, 



LECTURE XIII. 

Whether the Middle Comedy was a distinct species — Origin of the New 
Comedy — A mixed species — Its prosaic character — Whether versifica- 
tion is essential to Comedy — Subordinate kinds — Pieces of Character, 
and of Intrigue — The Comic of observation, of self-consciousness, and 
arbitrary Comic — Morahty of Comedj-^ — Plautus and Terence as imi- 
tators of the Greeks here cited and characterised for want of the 
Originals — Moral and social aim of the Attic Comedy — Statues of two 
Comic Authors. 

Ancient critics assume tbe existence of a Middle Comedy, 
between the Old and the Nevj. Its distinguishing character- 
istics are variously described : by some its peculiarity is made 
to consist in the abstinence from personal satire and intro- 
duction of real characters, and by others in the abolition 
of the chorus. But the introduction of real persons under their 
true names was never an indispensable requisite. Indeed, in 
several, even of Aristophanes' plays, we find characters in no 
respect historical, but altogether fictitious, but bearing signifi- 
cant names, after the manner of the New Comedy; while 
personal satire is only occasionally employed. This right of 
personal satire was no doubt, as I have already shown, 
essential to the Old Comedy, and the loss of it incapacitated 
the poets from throwing ridicule on public actions and afiairs 
of state. When accordingly they confined themselves to 
private life, the chorus ceased at once to have any signifi- 
cance. However, accidental circumstances accelerated its 
abolition. To dress and train the choristers was an expensive 
undertaking ; now, as Comedy with the forfeiture of its poli- 
tical privileges lost also its festal dignity, and was degraded 
into a mere amusement, the poet no longer found any rich 
patrons willing to take upon themselves the expense of fur- 
nishing the chorus. 

Platonius mentions a further characteristic of the Middle 
Comedy. On account, he says, of the danger of alluding to 
public afiairs, the comic writers had turned all their satire 
against serious poetry, whether epic or tragic, and sought to 



WHETHER A DISTINCT SPECIES. 175 

expose its absurdities and contradictions. As a specimen of 
this kind he gives the ^olosikon, one of Aristophanes' latest 
works. This description coincides with the idea of parody, 
which we placed foremost in our account of the Old Comedy. 
Platonius adduces also another instance in the Ulysses of Crati- 
nus, a burlesque of the Odyssey. But, in order of time, no play 
of Cratinus could belong to the Middle Comedy; for his death 
is mentioned by Aristophanes in his Peace. And as to the 
drama of Eupolis, in which he described what we call an 
Utopia, or Lubberly Land, what else was it but a parody of 
the poetical legends of the golden age ? But in Aristophanes, 
not to mention his parodies of so many tragic scenes, are 
not the Heaven-journey of Trygseus, and the Hell-journey 
of Bacchus, ludicrous imitations of the deeds of Bellerophon 
and Here ales, sung in epic and tragic poetry 1 In vain there- 
fore should we seek in this restriction to parodj^- any dis- 
tinctive peculiarity of the so-called Middle Comedy. Frolic- 
some caprice, and allegorical significance of composition are, 
poetically considered, the only essential criteria of the Old 
Comedy. In this class, therefore, we shall rank every work 
where we find these qualities, in whatever times, and under 
whatever circumstances, it may have been composed. 

As the New Comedy arose out of a mere negation, the 
abolition, viz., of the old political freedom, we may easily 
conceive that there would be an interval of fluctuating, and 
tentative efforts to supply its place, before a new comic form 
could be developed and fully established. Hence there may 
have been many kinds of the Middle Comedy, many inter- 
mediate gradations, between the Old and the New; and this is 
the opinion of some men of learning. And, indeed, historically 
considered, there appears good grounds for such a view; but 
in an artistic point of view, a transition does not itself consti- 
tute a species. 

We proceed therefore at once to the New Comedy, or that 
species of poetry which with us receives the appellation of 
Comedy. We shall, I think, form a more correct notion of 
it, if we consider it in its historical connexion, and from a 
regard to its various ingredients explain it to be a mixed and 
modified species, than we should were we to term it an ori- 
ginal and pure species, as those do who either do not concern 
themselves at all with the Old Comedy, or else regard it as 



176 ORIGIN OP THE NEW COMEDY. 

nothing better than a mere rude commencement. Hence, the 
infinite importance of Aristophanes, as we have in him a kind 
of poetry of which there is no other example to be found in the 
world. 

The New Comedy may, in certain respects, be described as 
the Old, tamed down; but in productions of genius, tameness 
is not generally considered a merit. The loss incurred by 
the prohibition of an unrestricted freedom of satire the new 
comic writers endeavoured to compensate by a mixture of 
earnestness borrowed from tragedy, both in the form of re- 
presentation and the general structure, and also in the 
impressions which they laboured to produce. We have seen 
how, in its last epoch, tragic poetry descended from its ideal 
elevation, and came nearer to common reality, both in the 
characters and in the tone of the dialogue, but more especially 
in its endeavour to convey practical instruction respecting 
the conduct of civil and domestic life in all their several 
requirements. This utilitarian turn in Euripides was the sub- 
ject of Aristophanes' ironical commendation*. Euripides was 
the precursor of the New Comedy; and all the poets of this 
species particularly admired him, and acknowledged him as 
their master. — The similarity of tone and spirit is even so 
great between them, that moral maxims of Eui'ipides have 
been ascribed to Menander, and others of Menander to Euri- 
pides. On the other hand, among the fragments of Menander, 
we find topics of consolation which frequently rise to the 
height of the true tragic tone. 

New Comedy, therefore, is a mixture of earnestness and 
mirthf. The poet no longer turns poetry and the world into 

* The Frogs, v. 9/]— 991. 

-}• The origmal here is not susceptible of an exact translation into 
English. Though the German language has this great advantage, that 
there are few ideas vvhich may not be expressed in it in words of Teutonic 
origin, yet words derived from Greek and Latin are also occasionally used 
indiscriminately with the Teutonic synonymes, for the sake of variety 
or otherwise. Thus the generic word spiel (play), is formed into lustspiel 
(comedy), trauerspiel (tragedy), sing -spiel (opera), schauspiel (drama); 
but the Germans also use tragcedie, komoedie, opera and drama. In the 
text, the author proposes, for the sake of distinction, to give the name ol 
lustspiel to the New Comedy, to distinguish it from the old; but having 
only the single term comedy in EngUsh, I must, in translating Imtspiel, 
make use of the two words, New Comedy. — Trans. 



DIFFERENT KINDS AND GRADATIONS OF THE COMIC. 177 

ridicule, he no longer abandons himself to an enthusiasm of 
fun, but seeks the sportive element in the objects themselves; 
he depicts in human characters and situations whatever 
occasions mirth, in a M^ord, what is pleasant and laughable. 
But the ridiculous must no longer come forward as the pure 
creation of his own fancy, but must be verisimilar, that is, 
seem to be real. Hence w^e must consider anew tbe above 
described comic ideal of human nature under the restrictions 
•which this law of composition imposes, and determine accord- 
ingly the different kinds and gradations of the Comic. 

The highest tragic earnestness, as I have already shown, 
runs ever into the infinite ; and the subject of Tragedy (pro- 
perly speaking) is the struggle between the outAvard finite 
existence, and the inward infinite aspirations. The subdued 
earnestness of the New Comedy, on the other hand, remains 
always within the sphere of experience. The place of Destiny 
is supplied by Chance, for the latter is the empirical concep- 
tion of the former, as being that which lies beyond our power 
or control. And accordingly we actually find among the 
fragments of the Comic writers as many expressions about 
Chance, as we do in the tragedians about Destiny. To un- 
conditional necessity, moral liberty could alone be opposed; 
as for Chance, every one must use his wits, and turn it to his 
own profit as he best can. On this account, the whole moral 
of the New Comedy, just like that of the Fable, is nothing 
more than a theory of prudence. In this sense, an ancient 
critic has, with inimitable brevity, given us the whole sum of 
the matter : that Tragedy is a running away from, or making 
an end of, life; Comedy its regulation. 

The idea of the Old Comedy is a fantastic illusion, a plea- 
sant dream, which at last, with the exception of the general 
effect, all ends in nothing. The New Comedy, on the other 
hand, is earnest in its form. It rejects every thing of a con- 
tradictory nature, which might have the efiect of destroying 
the impressions of reality. It endeavours after strict cohe- 
rence, and has, in common with Tragedy, a formal complica- 
tion and denouement of plot. Like Tragedy, too, it connects 
together its incidents, as cause and effect, only that it adopts 
the law of existence as it manifests itself in experience, with- 
out any such reference as Tragedy assumes to an idea. As 
the latter endeavours to satisfy our feelings at the close, in 

M 




178 TRUTHFULNESS OF THE NEW COMEDY. 

like manner the New Comedy endeavours to provide, at least, 
an apparent point of rest for the understanding. This, I may 
remark in passing, is by no means an easy task for the comic 
writer: he must contrive at last skilfully and naturally to 
get rid of the contradictions which with their complication and 
intricacy have diverted us during the course of the action; if 
lie really smooths them all off by making his fools become 
rational, or by reforming or punishing his villains, then there 
is an end at once of everything like a pleasant and comical 
impression. 

Such were the comic and tragic ingredients of the New 
Comedy, or Comedy in general. There is yet a third, how- 
ever, which in itself is neither comic nor tragic, in short, not 
even poetic. T allude to its portrait-like truthfulness. The 
ideal and caricature, both in the plastic arts and in dramatic 
poetry, la}^ claim to no other truth than that which lies in 
their significance : their individual beings even are not intended 
to appear real. Tragedy moves in an ideal, and the Old 
Comedy in a fanciful or fantastical world. As the creative 
power of the fancy was circumscribed in the New Comedy, it 
became necessary to afford some equivalent to the understand- 
ing, and this was furnished by the j^robability of the sub- 
jects represented, of which it was to be the judge. I do not 
mean the calculation of the rarity or frequency of the repre- 
sented incidents (for without the liberty of depicting singu- 
larities, even while keeping within the limits of e very-day 
life, comic amusement would be impossible), but all that is 
here meant is the individual truth of the picture. The New 
Comedy must be a true picture of the manners of the day, and 
its tone must be local and national; and even if we should see 
comedies of other times, and other nations, brought upon the 
stage, we shall still be able to trace and be pleased with this 
resemblance. By portrait-like truthfulness I do not mean 
that the comic characters must be altogether individual. The 
most striking features of different individuals of a class may 
be combined together in a certain completeness, provided they 
are clothed with a sufficient degree of peculiarity to have an 
individual life, and are not represented as examples of any 
partial and incomplete conception. But in so far as Comedy 
depicts the constitution of social and domestic life in general, 
it is a portrait; from this prosaic side it must be variously 



VERSIFICATION, IS IT ESSENTIAL TO COMEDY? 179 

modified, according to time and place, while tlie comic 
motives, in respect of their poetical principle, are always the 
same. 

The ancients themselves acknowledged the New Comedy 
to be a faithful picture of life. Full of this idea, the gram- 
marian Aristophanes exclaimed in a somewhat affected, though 
highly ingenious turn of expression: " life and Menander ! 
which of you copied the other?" Horace informs us that 
" some doubted whether Comedy be a poem; because 
neither in its subject nor in its language is there the same 
impressive elevation which distinguishes other kinds of poetry, 
while the composition is only distinguished from ordinary 
discourse by the versification." But it was urged by others, 
that Comedy occasionally elevates her tone ; for instance, when 
an angry father reproaches a son for his extravagance. 
This answer, however, is rejected by Horace as insufficient. 
'^ Would Pomponius," says he, with a sarcastic application, 
"hear milder reproaches if his father were living?" To 
answer the doubt, we must examine wherein Comedy goes 
beyond individual reality. In the first place it is a simulated 
whole, composed of congruous parts, agreeably to the scale of 
art. Moreover, the subject represented is handled according 
to the laws of theatrical exhibition ; everything foreign and 
incongruous is kept out, while all that is essential to the 
matter in hand is hurried on with swifter progress than in 
real life; over the whole, viz., the situations and characters, 
a certain clearness and distinctness of appearance is thrown, 
which the vague and indeterminate outlines of reality seldom 
possess. Thus the form constitutes the poetic element of 
Comedy, while its prosaic principle lies in the matter, in the 
required assimilation to something individual and external. 

We may now fitly proceed to the consideration of the much 
mooted question, whether versification be essential to Comedy, 
and whether a comedy written in prose is an imperfect produc- 
tion. This question has been frequently answered in the aflir- 
mative on the authority of the ancients, who, it is true, had no 
theatrical works in prose; this, however, may have arisen 
from accidental circumstances, for example, the great extent of 
their stage, in which verse, from its more emphatic delivery, 
must have been better heard than prose. Moreover, these cri- 
tics forget that the Mimes of Sophron, so much admired by 

M 2 



180 VERSIFICATION, IS IT ESSENTIAL TO COMEDY ? 

Plato, were written in prose. And what were these Mimes ? If 
we may judge of them from the statement that some of the Idylls 
of Theocritus were imitations of them in hexameters, they werej 
pictures of real life, in which every appearance of poetry was] 
studiously avoided. This consists in the coherence and con- 
nexion of a drama, which certainly is not found in these pieces;] 
they are merely so many detached scenes, in which one thing j 
succeeds another by chance, and without preparation, as th( 
particular hour of any working-day or holiday brought it^ 
about. The want of dramatic interest was supplied by the ^ 
mimic element, that is, by the most accurate representation of 
individual peculiarities in action and language, which arose 
from nationality as modified by local circumstances, and from 
sex, age, rank, occupations, and so forth. 

Even in versified Comedy, the language must, in the choice 
of words and phrases, differ in no respect, or at least in no 
perceptible degree, from that of ordinary life ; the licences of 
poetical expression, which are indispensable in other depart- 
ments of poetry, are here inadmissible. Not only must the 
versification not interfere with the common, unconstrained, and 
even careless tone of conversation, but it must also seem to be 
itself unpremeditated. It must not by its lofty tone elevate 
the characters as in Tragedy, where, along with the unusual 
sublimity of the language, it becomes as it were a mental Co- 
thurnus. In Comedy the verse must serve merely to give 
greater lightness, spirit, and elegance to the dialogue. 
Whether, therefore, a particular comedy ought fo be versified 
or not, must depend on the consideration whether it would be 
more suitable to the subject in hand to give to the dialogue 
this perfection of form, or to adopt into the comic imitation all 
rhetorical and grammatical errors, and even physical imperfec- 
iions of speech. The frequent production, however, of prose 
comedies in modern times has not been owing so much to this 
cause as to the ease and convenience of the author, and in 
some degree also of the player. I would, however, recommend 
to my countrymen, the Germans, the diligent use of verse, 
and even of rhyme, in Comedy; for as our national Comedy is 
yet to be formed, the whole composition, by the greater strict- 
ness of the form, would gain in keeping and appearance, and 
we should be enabled at the very outset to guard against many- 
important errors. We have not yet attained such a mastery 



r 



COMIC LITERATURE OP THE GREEKS. 181 

in tLis matter as will allow us to abandon ourselves to an 
agreeable negligence. 

As we have pronounced tbe New Comedy to be a mixed 
species, formed out of comic and tragic, poetic and prosaic 
elements, it is evident that this species may comprise several 
subordinate kinds, according to the preponderance of one or 
other of the ingredients. If the poet plays in a sportive 
humour with his own inventions, the result is a farce; if he 
confines himself to the ludicrous in situations and characters, 
carefully avoiding all admixture of serious matter, we have a 
pure comedy (lustspiel) ; in proportion as earnestness prevails 
in the scope of the whole composition, and in the sympathy 
and moral judgment it gives rise to, the piece becomes what 
is called Instructive or Sentimental Comedy ; and there is only 
another step to the familiar or domestic tragedy. Great stress 
has often been laid on the two last mentioned species as inven- 
tions entirely new, and of great importance, and peculiar 
theories have been devised for them, &c. In the lacrymose 
drama of Diderot, which was afterwards so much decried, the 
failure consisted altogether in that which was new; the affec- 
tation of nature, the pedantry of the domestic relations, and 
the lavish, use of pathos. Did we still possess the whole of the 
comic literature of the Greeks, we should, without doubt, find in 
it the models of all these species, with this difference, however, 
that the clear head of the Greeks assuredly never allowed 
them to fall into a chilling monotony, but that they arrayed 
and tempered all in due proportion. Have not we, even 
a,mong the few pieces that remain to us, the Captives of Plau- 
tus, which may be called a pathetic drama; the Step-Mother 
of Terence, a true family picture; while the Amphitryo bor- 
ders on the fantastic boldness of the Old Comedy, and the 
Twin-Brothers {Mencechni) is a wild piece of intrigue 1 Do we 
not find in all Terence's plays serious, impassioned, and touching 
passages] ¥/e have only to call to mind the first scene of the 
Heautontimorumenos. From our point of view we hope in 
short to find a due place for all things. We see here no dis- 
tinct species, but merely gradations in the tone of the composi- 
tion, which are marked by tra,nsitions more or less perceptible. 

Neither can we allow the common division into Plays of 
Character and Plays of Intrigue, to pass without limitation. 
A good comedy ought always to be both, otherwise it will be defi- 



I 



182 PIECES OF CHARACTER. 

clent either in body or animation. Sometimes, liowever^tlie one 
and sometimes the other will, no doubt, preponderate. The 
development of the comic characters requires situations to place 
them in strong contrast, and these again can result from 
nothing but that crossing of purposes and events, which, as I 
have already shown, constitutes intrigue in the dramatic 
sense. Every one knows the meaning of intriguing in com- 
mon life; namely, the leading others by cunning and dissimu- 
lation, to further, without their knowledge and against their 
will, our own hidden designs. In the drama both these signi- 
fications coincide, for the cunning of the one becomes a cross- 
purpose for the other. 

When the characters are only slightly sketched, so far 
merely as is necessary to account for the actions of the charac- 
ters in this or that case ; when also the incidents are so accu- 
mulated, that little room is left for display of character ; when 
the plot is so wrought up, that the motley tangle of misun- 
derstandings and embarrassments seems every moment on 
the point of being loosened, and yet the knot is only drawn 
tighter and tighter : such a composition may well be called a 
Play of Intrigue. The French critics have made it fashion- 
able to consider this kind of play much below the so-called 
Play of Character, perhaps because they look too exclusively 
to how much of a play may be retained by us and carried 
home. It is true, the Piece of Intrigue, in some degree, ends 
at last in nothing: but why should it not be occasionally 
allowable to divert oneself ingeniously, without any ulterior 
object ? Certainly, a good comedy of this description requires 
much inventive wit: besides the entertainment which we 
derive from the display of such acuteness and ingenuity, the 
wonderful tricks and contrivances which are practised possess 
a great charm for the fancy, as the success of many a Spanish 
piece proves. 

To the Play of Intrigue it is objected, that it deviates from 
the natural course of things, that it is improbable. We may 
admit the former without however admitting the latter. The 
poet, no doubt, exhibits before us what is unexpected, extra- 
ordinary, and singular, even to incredibility; and often he 
even sets out with a great improbability, as, for example, the 
resemblance between two persons, or a disguise which is not 
seen through; afterwards, however, all the incidents must 



PIECES OF INTRIGUE. 188 

have tlie appearance of truth, and all the circumstances by 
means of which the affair takes so niarvellous a turn, must be 
satisfactorily explained. As in respect to the events which 
take place, the poet gives us but a light play of wit, we are 
the more strict with him respecting the how by which they 
are brought about. 

In the comedies which aim more at delineation of character, 
the dramatic personages must be skilfully grouped so as to 
throw light on each other's character. This, however, is very 
apt to degenerate into too systematic a method, each charac- 
ter being regularly matched with its symmetrical opposite, and 
thereby an unnatural appearance is given to the whole. Nor 
are those comedies deserving of much j)raise, in which the 
rest of the characters are introduced only, as it were, to allow 
the principal one to go through all his different probations; 
especially when that character consists of nothing but an 
opinion, or a habit (for instance, L'Optim'iste, Le Distrait), as 
if an individual could thus be made up entirely of one single 
peculiarity, and must not rather be on all sides variously 
modified and affected. 

What was the sportive ideal of human nature in the Old 
Comedy I have already shown. Now as the New Comedy 
had to give to its representation a resemblance to a definite 
reality, it could not indulge in such studied and arbitrary ex- 
aggeration as the old did. It was, therefore, obliged to seek 
for other sources of comic amusement, which lie nearer the 
province of earnestness, and these it found in a more accurate 
and thorough delineation of character. 

In the characters of the New Comedy, either the Comic of 
Observation or the /Self- Conscious and Confessed Comic, will be 
found to prevail. The former constitutes the more refined, or 
what is called High Comedy, and the latter Low Comedy or 
Farce. 

But to explain myself more distinctly : there are laughable 
peculiarities, follies, and obliquities, of which the possessor 
himself is unconscious, or which, if he does at all perceive 
them, he studiously endeavours to conceal, as being calculated 
to injure him in the opinion of others. Such persons conse- 
quently do not give themselves out for what they actually 
are; their secret escapes from them unwittingly, or against 
their will. Rightly, therefore, to portray such characters, the 



184 THE SELF-CONSCIOUS COMIC. 

poet must lend us liis own peculiar talent for observation, 
tliat we may fully understand them. His art consists in 
making the character appear through slight hints and stolen 
glimpses, and in so placing the spectator, that whatever deli- 
cacy of observation it may require, he can hardly fail to see 
through them. 

There are other moral defects, which are beheld by their 
possessor with a certain degree of satisfaction, and which he 
even makes it a principle not to get rid of, but to cherish and 
preserve. Of this kind is all that, without selfish pretensions, 
or hostile inclinations, merely originates in the preponder- 
ance of the animal being. This may, without doubt, be 
united to a high degree of intellect, and when such a person 
applies his mental powers to the consideration of his own 
character, laughs at himself, confesses his failings or endea- 
vours to reconcile others to them, by setting them in a droll 
light, we have then an instance of the Self-Conscious Comic. 
This species always supj)oses a certain inward duality of cha- 
racter, and the superior half, which rallies and laughs at the 
other, has in its tone and occupation a near affinity to the 
comic poet himself. He occasionally delivers over his func- 
tions entirely to this representative, allowing him studiously 
to overcharge the picture which he draws of himself, and 
to enter into a tacit understanding with the spectators, that 
lie and they are to turn the other characters into ridicule. 
We have in this way the Comedy of Ccqyrice, which generally 
produces a powerful ejBect, however much critics may depre- 
ciate it. In it the spirit of the Old Comedy is still at work. 
The privileged merry-maker, who, under different names, 
has appeared on almost all stages, whose part is at one time 
a display of shrewd wit, and at another of coarse clownish- 
ness, has inherited something of the licentious enthusiasm, but 
without the rights and privileges of the free and unrestrained 
writers of the Old Comedy. Could there be a stronger proof 
that the Old Comedy, which we ha^'e described as the original 
species, was not a mere Grecian peculiarity, but had its root 
and principle in the very nature of things? 

To keep the spectators in a mirthful tone of mind Comedy 
must hold them as much as possible aloof from all moral 
appreciation of its personages, and from all deep interest in 
their forLunes, for in both these cases an entrance will infal- 



MORALITY OP COMEDY. 185 

libly be given to seriousness. How tlien does the poet avoid 
agitating tlie moral feeling, when the actions he represents are 
of such a nature as must give rise sometimes to disgust and 
contempt, and sometimes to esteem and love? By always 
keeping within the province of the understanding, he con- 
trasts men with men as mere physical beings, just to measure 
on each other their powers, of course their mental powers as 
well as others, nay, even more especially. In this respect 
Comedy bears a very near affinity to Fable : in the Fable 
we have animals endowed with reason, and in Comedy we 
have men serving their animal propensities with their under- 
standing. By animal propensities I mean sensuality, or, in a 
still more general sense, self-love. As heroism and self-sacri- 
fice raise the character to a tragic elevation, so the true comic 
personages are complete egotists. This must, however, be 
understood with due limitation : we do not mean that Comedy 
never portrays the social instincts, only that it invariably 
represents them as originating in the natural endeavour after 
our own happiness. Whenever the poet goes beyond this, 
he leaves the comic tone. It is not his purpose to direct our 
feelings to a sense of the dignity or meanness, the innocence 
or corruption, the goodness or baseness of the acting person- 
ages ; but to show us whether they act stupidly or wisely, 
adroitly or clumsily, with silliness or ability. 

Examples will place the matter in the clearest light. We 
possess an involuntary and immediate veneration for truth, 
and this belongs to the innermost emotions of the moral sense. 
A malignant lie, which threatens mischievous consequences, 
fills us with the highest indignation, and belongs to Tragedy. 
Why then are cunning and deceit admitted to be excellent as 
comic motives, so long as they are used with no malicious 
purpose, but merely to promote our self-love, to extricate one's- 
self from a dilemma, or to gain some particular object, and 
from which no dangerous consequences are to be dreaded? It 
is because the deceiver having already withdrawn from the 
sphere of morality, truth and untruth are in themselves indif- 
ferent to him, and are only considered in the light of means; 
and so we entertain ourselves merely with observing how 
great an expenditure of shaipness and ready-wittedness is 
necessary to serve the turn of a character so little exalted. 
Still more amusing is it when the deceiver is caught in his own 



186 ■ EXAMPLES OF COMIC SITUATIOXS. 

snare ; for instance, when lie is to keep up a lie, but has a 
bad memory. On the other hand, the mistake of the deceived 
party, when not seriously dangerous, is a comic situation, and 
the more so in proportion as this error of the understanding 
arises from previous abuse of the mental powers, from vanity, 
folly, or obliquity. But above all when deceit and error cross 
one another, and are by that means multiplied, the comic 
situations produced are particularly excellent. For instance, 
two men meet with the intention of deceiving one another; 
each however is forewarned and on his guard, and so both go 
away deceived only in respect to the success of their decep- 
tion. Or again, one wishes to deceive another, but unwit- 
tingly tells him the truth; the other person, however, being 
suspicious, falls into the snare, merely from being over-iimch 
on his guard. We might in this way compose a sort of comic 
grammar, which should show how the separate motives are to 
be entangled one with another, with continually increasing 
effect, up to the most artificial complication. It might also 
point out how that tangle of misunderstanding which con- 
stitutes a Comedy of Intrigue is by no means so contemp- 
tible a part of the comic art, as the advocates of the fine-spun 
Comedy of Character are pleased to assert. 

Aristotle describes the laughable as an imperfection, an 
impropriety which is not productive of any essential harm. 
Excellently said ! for from the moment that we entertain a 
real compassion for the characters, all mirthful feeling is at 
an end. Comic misfortune must not go beyond an embarrass- 
ment, which is to be set right at last, or at most, a deserved 
humiliation. Of this description are corporeal means of 
education applied to grown people, which our finer, or at 
least more fastidious age, will not tolerate on the stage, 
although j\Ioliere, Holberg, and other masters, have fre- 
quently availed themselves of them. The comic effect arises 
from our having herein a pretty obvious demonstration of the 
mind's dependence on external things : we have, as it were, 
motives assuming a palpable form. In Comedy these chas- 
tisements hold the same place that violent deaths, met with 
heroic magnanimity, do in Tragedy. Here the resolution re- 
mains unshaken amid all the terrors of annihilation; the man 
perishes but his principles survive; there the corporeal exist- 
ence remains, but the sentiments suffer an instantaneous 
change. 



COMEDY REPROACHED WITH IMMORALITY. l87 

As then Comedy must place the spectator in a point of 
view altogether different from that of moral appreciation, 
with what right can moral instruction be demanded of Comedy, 
with what ground can it be expected? When we examine 
more closely the moral apophthegms of the Greek comic 
writers, we find that they are all of them maxims of expe- 
rience. It is not, however, from experience that we gain a 
knowledge of our duties, of which conscience gives us an 
immediate conviction ; experience can only enlighten us with 
respect to what is profitable or detrimental. The instruction 
of Comedy does not turn on the dignity of the object proposed 
but on the sufficiency of the means employed. It is, as has 
been already said, the doctrine of prudence ; the morality of 
consequences and not of motives. Morality, in its genuine 
acceptation, is essentially allied to the spirit of Tragedy. 

Many philosophers have on this account reproached Comedy 
with immorality, and among others, Rousseau, with much 
eloquence, in his Epistle on the Drama. The aspect of the 
actual course of things in the world is, no doubt, far from 
edifying j it is not, however, held up in Comedy as a model 
for imitation, but as a warning and admonition. In the doc- 
trine of morals there is an applied or practical part : it may 
be called the Art of Living. Whoever has no knowledge of 
the world is perpetually in danger of making a wrong appli- 
cation of moral principles to individual cases, and, so with 
the very best intentions in the world, may occasion much 
mischief both to himself and others. Comedy is intended to 
sharpen our powers of discrimination, both of persons and 
situations ; to make us shrewder ; and this is its true and only 
possible morality. 

So much for the determination of the general idea, which 
must serve as our clue in the examination of the merits of the 
individual poets. 



188 THE NEW COMEDY OF THE GREEKS. 



. LECTURE XIV. 

Plautus and Terence as Imitators of the Greeks, here examined and cha- 
racterized in the absence of the Originals they copied — Motives of the 
Atlienian Comedy from Manners and Society — Portrait- Statues of two 
Comedians. 

On the little of tlie New Comedy of tlie Greeks tliat lias 
reached uS;, either in fragments or through the medium of Ro- 
man imitations, all I have to say may be comprised in a few 
words. 

In this department Greek literature was extremely rich: 
the mere list of the comic writers whose works are lost, and 
of the names of their works, so far as they are known to us, 
makes of itself no inconsiderable dictionary. Although, the 
New Comedy developed itself and flourished only in the short 
interval between the end of the Peloponnesian war and the 
first successors of Alexander the Great, yet the stock of 
pieces amounted to thousands; but time has made such havoc 
in this superabundance of talented and ingenious works, that 
nothing remains in the original but a number of detached 
fragments, of which many are so disfigured as to be unintel- 
ligible, and, in the Latin, about twenty translations or recasts 
of Greek originals by Plautus, and six by Terence. Here is 
a fitting task for the redintegrative labours of criticism, to put 
together all the fragmentary traces which we possess, in order 
to form from them something like a just estimate and cha- 
racter of what is lost. The chief requisites in an undertaking 
of this kind, I will take u]3on myself to point out. The frag- 
ments and moral maxims of the comic writers are, in their 
A^ersificatiou and language, distinguished by extreme purity, 
elegance, and accuracy; moreover, the tone of society which 
speaks in them breathes a certain Attic grace. The Latin 
comic poets, on the other hand, are negligent in their versifi- 
cation; they trouble themselves very little about syllabic 
quantity, and the very idea of it is almost lost amidst their 
many metrical licences. Their language also, at least that 



THE ROMAN WRITERS: PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 189 

of PlautuSj is deficient in cultivation and polish. Several 
learned Romans, and Varro among others, have, it is true, 
highly praised the style of this poet, but then we must make 
the due distinction between philological and poetical appro- 
bation. Plautus and Terence were among the most ancient 
Roman writers, and belonged to an age when a book-language 
had hardly yet an existence, and when every phrase was 
caught up fresh from the life. This naive simplicity had 
its peculiar charms for the later Romans of the age of learned 
cultivation : it was, however, rather the gift of nature than 
the fruit of poetical art. Horace set himself against this 
excessive partiality, and asserted that Plautus and the other 
comic poets threw off their pieces negligently, and wrote them 
in the utmost haste, that they might be the sooner paid 
for them. We may safely affirm, therefore, that in the 
graces and elegances of execution, the Greek poets have 
always lost in the Latin imitations. These we must, in ima- 
gination, retranslate into the finished elegance which we per- 
ceive in the Greek fragments. Moreover, Plautus and Te- 
rence made many changes in the general plan, and these 
could hardly be improvements. The former at times omitted 
whole scenes and characters, and the latter made additions, 
and occasionally ran two plays into one. Was this done 
with an artistic design, and were they actually desirous of 
excelling their Grecian predecessors in the structure of their 
pieces ? I doubt it. Plautus was perpetually running out 
into diffuseness, and he was obliged to remedy in some other 
way the lengthening which this gave to the original; the 
imitations of Terence, on the other hand, from his lack of in- 
vention, turned out somewhat meagre, and he filled up the 
gaps with materials borrowed from other pieces. Even his 
contemporaries reproached him with having falsified or cor- 
rupted a number of Greek pieces, for the purpose of making 
out of them a few Latin ones. 

Plautus and Terence are generally mentioned as writers in 
every respect original. In Romans this was perhaps pardon- 
able : they possessed but little of the true poetic spirit, and 
their poetical literature owed its origin, for the most part, 
first to translation, then to free imitation, and finally to 
appropriation and new modelling, of the Greek. With them, 
therefore, a particular sort of adaptation passed for originality. 



190 PLAUTUS AND TERENCE: THEIR CHARACTER. 

Thus we find, from Terence's apologetic prologues, that they 
had so lowered the notion of plagiarism, that he was accused 
of it, because he had made use of matter which had been 
already adapted from the Greek. As we cannot, therefore, 
consider these writers in the light of creative artists, and 
since consequently they are only important to us in so far as 
we may by their means become acquainted with the shape of 
the Greek New Comedy, I will here insert the few remarks I 
have to make on their character and differences, and then 
return to the Greek writers of the New Comedy. 

Among the Greeks, poets and artists were at all times held 
in honour and estimation; among the Romans, on the con- 
trary, polite literature was at first cultivated by men of the 
lowest rank, by needy foreigners, and even by slaves. Plau- 
tus and Terence, who closely followed each other in time, 
and whose lifetime belongs to the last years of the second 
Punic war, and to the interval between the second and third, 
were of the lowest rank : the former, at best a poor day 
labourer, and the latter, a Carthaginian slave, and afterwards 
a freed man. Their fortunes, however, were very difierent. 
Plautus, when he was not employed in writing comedies, was 
fain to hire himself out to do the work of a beast of burthen 
in a mill; Terence was domesticated with the elder Scipio 
and his bosom friend La9lius, who deigned to admit him to 
such familiarity, that he fell under the honourable imputation 
of being assisted in the composition of his pieces by these 
noble Romans, and it was even said that they allowed their 
own labours to pass under his name. The habits of their 
lives are perceptible in their respective modes of writing : the 
bold, coarse style of Plautus, and his famous jests, betray his 
intercourse with the vulgar; in that of Terence, we discern 
the traces of good society. They are further distinguished 
by their choice of matter. Plautus generally inclines to the 
farcical, to overwrought, and often disgusting drollery; Te- 
rence prefers the more delicate shades of characterization, and, 
avoiding everything like exaggeration, approaches the seri- 
ously instructive and sentimental kind. Some of the pieces of 
Plautus are taken from Diphilus and Philemon, but there 
is reason to believe that he added- a considerable degree 
of coarseness to his originals; from whom he derived the 
others is unknown, unless, perhaps, the assertion of Horace, 



menander: epicurean philosophy. 191 

" It is said that Plautus took for his model the Sicilian Epi- 
charmus/' will warrant the conjecture that he borrowed the 
Amphitryo, a piece which is quite different in kind from all 
his others, and which he himself calls a Tragi-comedy, from 
that old Doric comedian, who we know employed himself 
chiefly on mythological subjects. Among the pieces of Te- 
rence, whose copies, with the exception of certain changes of 
the plan and structure, are probably much more faithful in 
detail than those of the other, we find two from Apollodorus, 
and the rest from Menander. Julius Csesar has honoured 
Terence with some verses, in which he calls him a half Me- 
nander, praising the smoothness of his style, and only lament- 
ing that he has lost a certain comic vigour which marked his 
original. 

This naturally brings us back to the Grecian masters. 
Diphilus, Philemon, Apollodorus, and Menander, are certainly 
four of the most celebrated names among them. The palm, 
for elegance, delicacy, and sweetness, is with one voice given 
to Menander, although Philemon frequently carried off the 
prize before him, probably because he studied more the taste 
of the multitude, or because he availed himself of adscititious 
means of popularity. This was at least insinuated by Men- 
ander, who when he met his rival one day said to him, "Pray, 
Philemon, dost thou not blush when thou gainest a victory 
over me f 

Menander flourished after the times of Alexander the Great, 
and was the contemporary of Demetrius Phalereus, He was 
instructed in philosophy by Theophrastus, but his own 
opinions inclined him to that of Epicurus, and he boasted in 
an epigram, "that if Themistocles freed his country from 
slavery, Epicurus freed it from irrationalit}'-." He was fond 
of the choicest sensual enjoyments : Phgedrus, in an unfinished 
tale, describes him to us as even in his exterior, an effeminate 
voluptuary; and his amour with the courtesan Glycera is 
notorious. The Epicurean philosophy, which placed the 
supreme happiness of life in the benevolent affections, but 
neither spurred men on to heroic action, nor excited any 
sense of it in the mind, could hardly fail to be well received 
among the Greeks, after the loss of their old and glorious 
freedom: with their cheerful mild way of thinking, it was 
admirably calculated to console them. It is perhaps the most 



192 CONSTRUCTION OF THE STAGE. 

suitable for the comic poet, as the stoical philosophy is for the 
tragedian. The object of the comedian is merely to produce 
mitigated impressions, and by no means to excite a strong 
indignation at human frailties. On the other hand, we may 
easily comprehend why the Greeks conceived a passion for the 
New- Comedy at the very period when they lost their freedom, 
as it diverted them from sympathy with the course of human 
affairs in general, and with political events, and absorbed 
their attention wholly in domestic and personal concerns. 

The Grecian theatre was originally formed for higher 
walks of the drama ; and we do not attempt to dissemble the 
inconveniences and disadvantages which its structure must 
have occasioned to Comedy. The frame was too large, and 
the picture could not fill it. The Greek stage was open to 
the heavens, and it exhibited little or nothing of the interior 
of the houses*. The New Comedy was therefore under the 
necessity of placing its scene in the street. This gave rise to 
many inconveniences; thus people frequently come out of 
their houses to tell their secrets to one another in j^ublic. It 
is true, the poets were thus also saved the necessity of 
changing the scene, by supposing that the families concerned 
in the action lived in the same neighbourhood. It may be 
urged in their justification, that the Greeks, like all other 
southern nations, lived a good deal out of their small private 
houses, in the open air. The chief disadvantage with which 
this construction of the stage was attended, was the limitation 
of the female parts. With that due observance of custom 
which the essence of the New Comedy required, the exclusion 

* To sei-ve tliis purpose recourse was had to the encyclema, which, 
no doubt, in the commencement of the Clouds, exhibited Strepsiades and 
his son sleeping on their beds. Moreover, Juhus Pollux mentions among 
the decorations of New Comedy, a sort of tent, hut, or shed, adjoining to 
the middle edifice, with a doorway, originally a stable, but afterwards 
apphcable to many purposes. In the Sempstresses of Antiphanes, it re- 
presented a sort of workshop. Here, or in the encyclema, entertainments 
were given, which in the old comedies sometimes took place before the 
eyes of the spectators. With the southern habits of the ancients, it was 
not, perhaps, so uimatural to feast with open doors, as it would be in the 
north of E\xrope. But no modem commentator has yet, so far as I know, 
endeavoured to illustrate in a proper manner the theatrical arrangement of 
the plays of Plautus and Terence. [See the Fourth Lecture, &c., and the 
Appendix on the Scenic Arrangement of the Greek Theatre.] 



MARRIAGE LAWS OF THE GREEKS. 193 

of unmarried women and young maidens in general was an 
inevitable consequence of the retired life of the female sex in 
Greece. None appear but aged matrons^ female slaves, or 
girls of light reputation. Hence, besides the loss of many- 
agreeable situations, arose this further inconvenience, that 
frequently the whole piece turns on a marriage with, or a 
passion for, a young woman, who is never once seen. 

Athens, where the fictitious, as well as the actual, scene 
was generally placed, was the centre of a small territory, and 
in no wise to be compared with our capital cities, either in 
extent or population. Republican equality admitted of no 
marked distinction of ranks; there was no proper nobility: 
all were alike citizens, richer or poorer, and for the most part 
had no other occupation than the management of their several 
properties. Hence the Attic New Comedy could not well 
admit of the contrasts arising from diversity of tone and mental 
culture; it generally moves within a sort of middle rank, 
and has something citizen-like, nay, if I may so say, some- 
thing of the manners of a small town about it, Avhich is not at 
all to the taste of those who would have comedy to portray 
the manners of a court, and the refinement or corruption of 
monarchical capitals. 

"With respect to the intercourse between the two sexes, the 
Greeks knew nothing of the gallantry of modern Europe, nor 
the union of love with enthusiastic veneration. All was sen- 
sual passion or marriage. The latter was, by the constitution 
and manners of the Greeks, much more a matter of duty, or 
an aflfair of convenience, than of inclination. The laws were 
strict only in one point, the preservation of the pure national 
extraction of the children, which alone was legitimate. The 
right of citizenship was a great prerogative, and the more 
valuable the smaller the number of citizens, which was not 
allowed to increase beyond a certain point. Hence marriages 
with foreign women were invalid. The society of a wife, 
whom, in most cases, the husband had not even seen before 
his marriage with her, and who passed her whole life within 
the walls of her house, could not afford him much entertain- 
ment; this vv^as sought among women who had forfeited all 
title to strict respect, and who were generally foreigners 
without property, or freed slaves, and the like. With women 
of this description the easy morality of the Greeks allowed of 

N 



194 CHARACTERS REPRESENTED ANALYSIS. 

the greatest license, especially to young unmarried men. The 
ancient writers, therefore, of the New Comedy paint this 
mode of life with much less disguise than we think decorous. 
Their comedies, like all comedies in the world, frequently end 
with marriages (it seems this catastrophe brings seriousness 
along with it); but the marriage is often entered upon 
merely as a means of propitiating a father incensed at the 
irregularities of some illicit amour. It sometimes hapjjens, 
however, that the amour is changed into a lawful marriage by 
means of a discovery that the supposed foreigner or slave is 
by birth an Athenian citizen. It is worthy of remark, that 
the fruitful mind of the very poet who carried the Old Comedy 
to perfection, j)ut forth also the first germ of the New. 
Cocalus, the last piece which Aristophanes composed, con- 
tained a seduction, a recognition, and all the leading circum- 
stances which were afterwards employed by Menander in his 
comic pieces. 

From what has been said, it is easy to overlook the whole 
round of characters ; nay, they are so few, and so perpetually 
recur, that they may be almost all enumerated. The austere 
and stingy, or the mild easy father, the latter not unfre- 
quently under the dominion of his wife, and making com- 
mon cause with his son against her; the housewife either 
loving and sensible, or scolding and domineering, and j)re- 
suming on the accession she has brought to the family pro- 
perty; the young man giddy and extravagant, but frank and 
amiable, who even in a passion sensual at its commence- 
ment is capable of true attachment; the girl of light cha- 
racter, either thoroughly depraved, vain, cunning, and 
selfish, or still good-hearted and susceptible of better feelings; 
the simj)le and clownish, and the cunning slave who assists 
his young master in cheating his old father, and by all man- 
ner of knavish tricks procures him money for the gratification 
of his passions; {as this character iiilays a prijicipal ^^arif, / 
shall shortly mahe some further olservations on it;) the flatterer 
or accommodating parasite, who, for the sake of a good meal, 
is ready to say or do any thing that may be required of him ; 
the sycophant, a man whose business it was to set quietly- 
disposed people by the ears, and stir up law-suits, for the 
conduct of whicb he offered his services; the gasconading 
soldier, returned from foreign service, generally cowardly and 



CHAKACTERS KEPRESEKTED ANALYSIS. 195 

simple, but wlio assumes airs and boasts of his exploits 
abroad; and lastly, a servant or pretended mother, who 
preaches very indifferent morals to the young girl entrusted 
to her carej and the slave-dealer, who speculates on the 
extravagant passions of young people, and regards nothing 
but his own pecuniary advantage. The two last characters, 
with their revolting coarseness, are, to our feelings, a real 
blot in the Greek Comedy; but its very subject-matter ren- 
dered it impossible for it to dispense with them. 

The knavish servant is generally also the buffoon, who 
takes pleasure in avowing, and even exaggerating, his own 
sensuality and want of principle, and who jokes at the 
expense of the other characters, and occasionally even ad- 
dresses the pit. This is the origin of the comic servants of 
the moderns, but I am inclined to doubt whether, with our 
manners, there is propriety and truth in introducing such 
characters. The Greek servant was a slave, subject for life 
to the arbitrary caprice of his master, and frequently the 
victim of the most severe treatment. A man, who, thus 
deprived by the constitution of society of all his natural 
rights, makes trick and artifice his trade may well be par- 
doned: he is in a state of war with his oppressors, and 
cunning is his natural weapon. But in our times, a servant, 
who is free to choose his situation and his master, is a 
good-for-nothing scoundrel if he assists the son to deceive 
the father. With respect, on the other hand, to the open 
avowal of fondness of good eating and drinking which is 
employed to give a comic stamp to servants and persons in 
a low rank of life, it may still be used without improj)riety : 
of those to whom life has granted but few j)rivileges it does 
not require much; and they may boldly own the vulgarity 
of their inclinations, without giving any shock to our moral 
feelings. The better the condition of servants in real life, 
the less adapted are they for the stage; and this at least 
redounds to the praise of our more humane age, that in our 
" family picture " tales we meet with servants who are right 
worthy characters, better fitted to excite our sympathy than 
our derision. 

The repetition of the same characters was as it were ac- 
knowledged by the Greek comic writers, by their frequent 
use of the same names, and those too in part expressive of 

n2 



196 USE OF MASKS JUSTIFIED. 

character. Ift this they did better than many comic poets of 
modern time?, who, for the sake of novelty of character, 
torture themselves to attain complete individuality, by which 
efforts no other eftect generally is produced than that of 
diverting our attention from the main business of the piece, 
and dissipating it on accessory circumstances. And then 
after all they imperceptibly fall back again into the old well- 
known character. It is better to delineate the characters at 
first with a certain breadtli, and to leave the actor room to 
touch them up more accurately, and to add the nicer and 
more personal traits, according to the requirements of each 
.composition. In this respect the use of masks admits of 
justification; which, like many other peculiarities of the 
ancient theatre, (such as the acting in the open air,) were still 
retained, though originally designed for other departments of 
the drama, and though the}'- seem a greater incongruity in 
the New Comedy than in the Old, and in Tragedy. But 
certainly it was unsuitable to the spirit of the New, 
that, while in other respects the representation approached 
nature with a more exact, nay, illusive resemblance, the 
masks deviated more from it than in the Old, being over- 
charged in the features, and almost to caricature. However 
singular this may appear, it is too expressly and formally 
attested to admit of a doubt*. As they were prohibited from 
bringing portraits of real persons on the stage they were, 
after the loss of their freedom, very careful lest they should 
accidentally stumble upon any resemblance, and especially 
to any of their Macedonian rulers; and in this way they 
endeavoured to secure themselves against the danger. Yet 
the exaggeration in question was hardly without its meaning. 
Accordingly we find it stated, that an unsymmetrical profile, 
with one eyebrow drawn up and the other down, denoted an 
idle, inquisitive, and intermeddling busy-bodyt, and we may 
in fact remark that men, who are in the habit of looking at 
things with anxious exact observation, are apt to acquire dis- 
tortions of this kind! 

* See Platonius, in Aristoph. cur. Kiister, p. xi. 

t See Jul. Pollux, in the section of comic masks. Compare Platonius, 
as above, and Quinctilian, 1. xi. c. 3. The supposed wonderful discovery 
of Voltaire respecting tragic masks, which I mentioned in the fourth 
Lecture, will hardly he forgotten. 



THE GREEK COMIC WRITERS. 197 

Among otter peculiarities tlie masks in comedy liave tliis 
advantage, tliat from tlie unavoidable repetition of the same 
characters the spectator knew at once what he had to expect. 
I once witnessed at Weimar a representation of the Adelphi 
of Terence, entirely in ancient costume, which, under the 
direction of Goethe, furnished us a truly Attic evening. The 
actors used partial masks, cleverly fitted to the real counten- 
ance*, and notwithstanding the smallness of the theatre, I 
did not find that they were in any way prejudicial to viva- 
city. The mask was peculiarly favourable for the jokes of 
the roguish slave : his uncouth physiognomy, as well as his 
apparel, stamped him at once as a man of a peculiar race, (as 
in truth the slaves were, partly even by extraction,) and he 
might therefore well be allowed to act and speak difi"erently 
from the rest of the characters. 

Out of the limited range of their civil and domestic life, 
and out of the simple theme of the characters above men- 
tioned, the iuA^ention of the Greek comic writers contrived to 
extract an inexhaustible multitude of variations, and yet, 
what is deserving of high praise, even in that on which they 
grounded their development and catastrophe, they ever re- 
mained true to their national customs. 

The circumstances of which they availed themselves for this 
purpose were generally the following : — Greece consisted of a 
number of small separate states, lying round about Athens on 
the coast and islands. Navigation was frequent, piracy not 
unusual, which, moreover, was directed against human beings 
in order to supply the slave-market. Thus, even free-born 
children might be kidnapped. Not unfrequently, too, they 
were exposed by their own parents, in virtue of their legal 
rights, and being unexpectedly saved from destruction, were 
afterwards restored to their families. All this prepared a 
ground-work for the recognitions in Greek Comedy between 
parents and children, brothers and sisters, &c., which as a 
means of bringing about the denouement, was borrowed by the 

* This also was not unknown to the ancients, as it proved by many- 
comic masks having in the place of the mouth a cii'cular opening of con- 
.siderable width, through which the mouth and the adjoining features were 
allowed to appear; and which, with their distorted movements, must have 
produced a highly ludicrous effect, from the contrast in the fixed distortion 
of the rest of the countenance. 



198 ANTIQUE TRxlGEDY AND OLD COMEDY INIMITABLE. 

comic from the tragic writers. The complicated intrigue is 
carried on within the represented action, but the singular and 
improbable accident on which it is founded, is removed to a 
distance both of time and place, so that the comedy, though, 
taken from every-day life, has still, in some degree, a marvel- 
lous romantic back-ground. 

The Greek Comic writers were acquainted with Comedy in 
all its extent, and employed themselves with equal diligence 
on all its varieties, the Farce, the Play of Intrigue, and the 
various kinds of the Play of Character, from caricature to 
the nicest delicacy of delineation, and even the serious or sen- 
timental drama. They possessed moreover a most enchanting 
species, of which, however, no examples are now remaining. 
From the titles of their pieces, and other indications, it appears 
they sometimes introduced historical personages, as for in- 
stance the poetess Sappho, with Alcaeus's and Anacreon's love 
for her, or her own passion for Phaon; the story of her leap 
from the Leucadian rock owes, perhaps, its origin, solely to the 
invention of the comic writers. To judge from their subject- 
matter, these comedies must have approached to our romantic 
drama ; and the mixture of beautiful passion with the tranquil 
grace of the ordinary comic representation must undoubtedly 
have been v^ery attractive. 

In the above observations I have, I conceive, given a faith- 
ful picture of the Greek Comedy. I have not attempted to 
disguise either its defects or its limitation. The ancient 
Tragedy and the Old Comedy are inimitable, unapproachable, 
and stand pJone in the whole range of the history of art. 
But in the New Comedy we may venture to measure our 
strength with the Greeks, and even attempt to surpass them. 
Whenever we descend from the Olympus of true poetry to 
the common earth, in other words, when once we mix the 
prose of a definite reality with the ideal creations of fancy, 
the success of productions is no longer determined by the genius 
alone, and a feeling for art, but the more or less favourable 
nature of circumstances. The figures of the gods of the 
Grecian sculptors stand before us as the perfect models for 
all ages. The noble occupation of giving an ideal perfection" 
to the human form having once been entered upon by the, 
fancy, all that is left even to an equal degree of inspiration 
is but to make a repetition of the same attempts. In the 



PORTRAIT-STATUES OP MENANDER AND POSIDIPPUS. 199 

execution^ however, of joersonal and individual resemblances, 
the modern statuary is the rival of the ancient : but this is no 
pure creation of art; observation must here come in: and 
whatever degree of science, profundity, and taste may be dis- 
played in the execution, the artist is still tied down to the 
object which is actually before him. 

In the admirable portrait-statues of two of the most cele- 
brated comic writers, Menander and Posidippus (in the Vati- 
can), the physiognomy of the Greek New Comedy appears to me 
to be almost visibly and personally expressed. Clad in the 
most simple dress, and holding a roll in their hands, they are 
sitting in arm-chairs with all the ease and self-possession 
which mark the conscious superiority of the master; and in 
that maturity of age which befits the undisturbed impartial 
observation which is requisite for Comedy, but yet hale and 
active, and free from all symptoms of decay. We recognise 
in them that corporeal vigour, which testifies at once to equal 
soundness both of mind and of temper ; no lofty enthusiasm, 
but at the same time nothing of folly or extravagance ; rather 
does a sage seriousness dwell on a brow wrinkled indeed, 
though not with care, but with the exercise of thought; while 
in the quick-searching eye, and in the mouth half curling 
into a smile, we have the unmistakable indications of a light 
playful irony. 



200 THE ROJIAX THEATRE. 



LECTURE XV. 

Roman Tlieatre — Native lands : Atellane Fables, INIimes, Comoedia To- 
gata — Greek Tragedj'^ transplanted to Rome — Tragic Authors of a former 
Epoch, and of the Augustan Age — Idea of a National Roman Tragedy — 
Cavises of the want of success of the Romans in Tragedy — Seneca. 

The examination of tlie nature of the Drama in general, as 
well as the consideration of the Greek theatre, which was as 
peculiar in its origin as in its maturity it was actually per- 
fect, have hitherto alone occupied our attention. Our notice 
of the dramatic literature of most of the other nations, which 
principally call for consideration, must be marked with greater 
brevity; and yet, we are not afraid that we shall be accused 
iu either case of either disproportionate length or concise- 
ness. 

And first, with respect to the Romans, whose theatre is in 
erery way immediately attached to that of the Greeks, we 
hare only, as it were, to notice one great gap, which partly 
arises from their own want of creative powers in this depart- 
ment, and partly from the loss, with the exception of a few 
fragments, of all that they did produce in it. The only 
works which have descended to us from the good classical 
times are those of Plautus and Terence, whom I have already 
characterised as copyists of the Greeks. 

Poetry in general had no native growth in Rome ; it was 
first artificially cultivated along with other luxuries in those 
later times when the original character of Rome was being 
fast extinguished under an imitation of foreign manners. In 
the Latin we hav^e an example of a language modelled into 
poetical expression, altogether after foreign grammatical and 
metrical forms. This imitation of the Greek was not accom- 
plished easily and without force : the Grascising was carried 
even to the length of a clumsy intermixture of the two 
languages. Gradually only was the poetical style smoothed 
and softened, and in Catullus we still j)erceive the last traces 
of its early harshness, which, however, are not without a 



fables: fabul^ atellan^. 201 

certain rugged cliarm. Those constructions^ and especially 
those compounds which were too much at variance with the 
internal structure of the Latin, and failed to become agreeable 
to the Roman ear, were in time rejected, and at length, in 
the age of Augustus, the poets succeeded in producing the 
most agreeable combination of the peculiarities, native and 
borrowed. Hardly, however, had the desired equilibrium 
been attained when a pause ensued; all free development 
was checked, and the poetical style, notwithstanding a seem- 
ing advance to greater boldness and learning, was irrevocably 
confined within the round of already sanctioned modes of 
expression. Thus the language of Latin poetry flourished 
only within the short interval which elapsed between the 
period of its unfinished state and its second death; and as to 
the spirit also of poetry, it too fared no better. 

To the invention of theatrical amusements the Romans 
were not led from any desire to enliven the leisure of their 
festivals with such exhibitions as withdraw the mind from 
the cares and concerns of life; but in their despondency 
under a desolating pestilence, against which all remedies 
seemed unavailing, they had recourse to the theatre, as a 
means of appeasing the anger of the gods, having previously 
been only acquainted with the exercises of the gymnasium 
and the games of the circus. The Iiistriones, however, whom 
for this purpose they summoned from Etruria, were merely 
dancers, who probably did not attempt any pantomimic 
dances, but endeavoured to delight their audience by the 
agility of their movements. Their oldest spoken plays, the 
Fahidce Atellanoe, the Romans borrowed from the Osci, the 
aboriginal inhabitants of Italy. With these saturce, (so called 
because first they were improvisatory farces, without dramatic 
connexion ; satura signifying a medley, or mixture of every 
thing,) they were satisfied till Livius Andronicus, somewhat 
more than five hundred years after the foundation of Rome, 
began to imitate the Greeks ; and the regular compositions of 
Tragedy and the New Comedy (the Old it was impossible to 
transplant) were then, for the first time, introduced into 
Rome. 

Thus the Romans owed the first idea of a play to the 
Etruscans, of the effusions of a sportive humour to the 
Oscans, and of a higher class of dramatic works to the 



202 THE OSCANS THE MIMES. 

Greeks. They displayed, lioweyer, more originality in the 
comic than in the tragic department. The Oscans, whose lan- 
guage soon ceasing to be spoken, survived only in these farces, 
were at least so near akin to the Romans, that their dialect 
was immediately understood by a Roman audience : for how 
else could the Romans have derived any amusement from the 
Atellan^e? So completely did they domesticate this species 
of drama that Roman youths, of noble families, enamoured of 
this entertainment, used to exhibit it on their festivals; on 
which account even the players who acted in the Atellane 
fables for money enjoyed peculiar privileges, being exempt 
from the infamy and exclusion from the tribes which attached 
to all other theatrical artists, and were also excused from 
military service. 

The Romans had, besides, their own Mimes. The foreign 
name of these little pieces would lead us to conclude that 
they bore a great affinity to the Greek Mimes; they differed, 
however, from them considerably in form; we know also that 
the manners portrayed in them had a local truth, and that 
the subject-matter was not derived from Greek composi- 
tions. 

It is peculiar to Italy, that from the earliest times its 
people have displayed a native talent for a merry, amusing, 
though very rude buffoonery, in extemporary speeches and 
songs, with accompanying appropriate gestures; though it 
has seldom beeu coupled with true dramatic taste. This 
latter assertion will be fully justified when we shall have 
examined all that has been accomplished in the higher walks 
of the Drama in that country, down to the most recent times. 
The former might be easily substantiated by a number of cir- 
cumstances, which, however, would lead us too far from our 
object into the history of the Saturnalia and similar customs. 
Even of the wit which prevails in the dialogues of the Pasquino 
and the Marforio and of their apposite and popular ridi- 
cule on passing events, many traces are to be found even in 
the times of the Emperors, however little disposed they were 
to be indulgent to such liberties. But what is more imme- 
diately connected with our present purpose is the conjecture 
that in these Mimes and Atellane Fables we have perhaps the 
first germ of the Commedia delV arte, the improvisatory farce 
with standing masks. A striking affinity between the latter 



PULCINELLO — JULIUS C/ESAR LABERIUS. 203 

and the Atellance consists in the employment of dialects to 
produce a ludicrous effect. But how would Harlequin and 
Pulcinello be astonished were they to be told that they 
descended in a direct line from the buffoons of the ancient 
Romans, and even from the Oscans! — With what drollery 
would they requite the labours of the antiquarian who should 
trace their glorious pedigree to such a root ! From the figures 
on Greek vases, we know that the grotesque masks of the Old 
Comedy bore a dress very much resembling theirs : long trou- 
sers, and a doublet with sleeves, articles of dress which the 
Greeks, as well as the Romans, never used except on the 
stage. Even in the present day Zanni is one of the names 
of Harlequin ; and Sannio in the Latin farces was a buffoon, 
who, according to the accounts of ancient writers, had a 
shaven head, and a dress patched together of gay parti-coloured 
pieces. The exact resemblance of the figure of Pulcinello is 
said to have been found among the frescoes of Pompeji. If 
he came originally from Atella, he is still mostly to be met 
with in the old land of his nativity. The objection that these 
traditions could not well have been preserved during the 
cessation for so many centuries of all theatrical amusements, 
will be easily got over when we recollect the licences annually 
enjoyed at the Carnival, and the Feasts of Fools in the middle 



The Greek Mimes were dialogues in prose, and not destined 
for the stage; the Roman were in verse, were acted, and often 
delivered extempore. The most celebrated authors of this 
kind were Laberius and Syrus, contemporaries of Julius 
Caesar. The latter when dictator, by an imperial request, 
compelled Laberius, a Roman knight, to appear publicly in 
his own Mimes, although the scenic employment was branded 
with the loss of civil rights. Laberius complained of this in 
a prologue, which is still extant, and in which the painful 
feeling of annihilated self-respect is nobly and affectingly ex- 
pressed. We cannot well conceive how, in such a state of mind, 
he could be capable of making ludicrous jokes, nor how, with 
so bitter an example of despotic degradation* before their 

* What humiliation Caesar would have inwardly felt, could he have 
foreseen that, within a few generations, Nero, his successor in absolute 
authority, out of a lust for self- degradation, would expose himself fre- 
quently to infamy in the same manner as he, the first despot, had exposed 



204 SYRUS, THE SLAVE. HORACE. 

eyes, tlie spectators could take any deliglit in them. Csesar, 
on liis part, kept his engagement: he gave Laberius a con- 
siderable sum of money, and invested him anew with the 
equestrian rank, which, however, could not re-instate him in 
the opinion of his fellow-citizens. On the other hand, he 
took his revenge for the prologue and other allusions by 
bestowing the prize on Syrus, the slave, and afterward the 
freedman and scholar of Laberius in the mimetic art. Of the 
Mimes of Syrus we have still extant a number of sentences, 
which, in matter and elegant conciseness of expression, are 
deserving of a place by the side of Menander's. Some of 
them even go beyond the moral horizon of serious Comedy, 
and assume an almost stoical elevation. How was the tran- 
sition from low farce to such elevation effected'? And how- 
could such maxims be at all introduced, without the same 
important involution of human relations as that which is 
exhibited in perfect Comedy? At all events, they are calcu- 
lated to give us a very favourable idea of the Mimes. 
Horace, indeed, speaks slightingly of the literary merit of 
Laberius' ]\Iimes, either on account of the arbitrary nature of 
their composition, or of the negligent manner in which they 
were worked out. However, we ought not to allow our own 
opinion to be too much influenced against him by this critical 
poet; for, from motives which are easy to understand, he lays 
much greater stress on the careful use of the file, than on 
original boldness and fertility of invention. A single entire 
Mime, which time unfortunately has denied us, would have 
thrown more light on this question than all the confused 
notices of grammarians, and all the conjectures of modern- 
scholars. 

The regular Comedy of the Romans was, for the most part, 
palliata, that is, it appeared in a Grecian costume, and repre- 
sented Grecian manners. This is the case with all the 
comedies of Plautus and Terence. But they had also a 
comoedia togata; so called from the Roman dress which was 
usually worn in it. Afranius is celebrated as the principal 
writer in this walk. Of these comedies we have no remains 
whatever, and the notices of them are so scanty, that we can- 

a Roman of the middle rank, not without exciting a general feeling of 
indignation. 



GREEK TRAGEDY TRANSPLANTED TO ROME, 205 

not even determine with certainty whether the togatse were 
original comedies of an entirely new invention, or merely 
Greek comedies recast with Roman manners. The latter caser 
is the more probable, as Afranius lived in a period when 
Roman genius had not yet ventured to try a flight of original 
invention ; although, on the other hand, it is not easy to con- 
ceive how the Attic comedies could, without great violence 
and constraint, have been adapted to local circumstances so 
entirely difierent. The tenor of Roman life was, in general, 
earnest and grave, although in private society they had no 
small turn for wit and joviality. The diversity of ranks 
among the Romans, politically, was very strongly marked, 
and the opulence of private individuals was frequently almost 
kingly ; their women lived much more in society, and acted a 
much more important part than the Grecian women did, and 
from this independence they fully participated in the over- 
whelming tide of corruption which accompanied external 
refinement. The differences being so essential, an original 
Roman comedy would have been a remarkable phenomenon, 
and would have enabled us to see these conquerors of the 
world in an aspect altogether new. That, however, this was 
not accomplished by the comoedia togata, is proved by the 
indifferent manner in which it is mentioned by the ancients. 
Quinctilian does not scruple to say, that the Latin literature 
limps most in comedy; this is his expression, word for word. 
With respect to Tragedy, we must, in the first place, re- 
mark, that the Grecian theatre was not introduced into Rome 
without considerable changes in its arrangement. The chorus, 
for instance, had no longer a place in the orchestra, where the 
most distinguished spectators, the knights and senators, now 
sat; but it remained on the stage itself. Here, then, was the 
very disadvantage which we alleged in objection to the modern 
attempts to introduce the chorus. Other deviations from the 
Grecian mode of representation were also sanctioned, which 
can hardly be considered as improvements. At the A'-ery first 
introduction of the regular drama, Livius Andronicus, a. 
Greek by birth, and the first tragic poet and actor of Rome, 
in his monodies (lyrical pieces which were sung by a single 
person, and not by the whole chorus), separated the song 
from the mimetic dancing, the latter only remaining to tlie 
actor, in whose stead a boy, standing beside the flute-player, 



206 TRAGIC AUTHORS OF A FORMER EPOCH. 

accompanied him with his voice. Among the Greeks, in 
better times, the tragic singing, and the accompanying rhyth- 
mical gestures, were so simple, that a single person was able 
to do at the same time ample justice to both. The Romans, 
however, it would seem, preferred separate excellence to 
harmonious unity. Hence arose, at an after period^ their 
fondness for pantomime, of which the art was carried to the 
greatest perfection in the time of Augustus. From the names 
of the most celebrated of the performers, Pylades, Bathyllus, 
&c., it would appear that it was Greeks that practised this 
mute eloquence in Rome; and the lyric pieces which were 
expressed by their dances were also delivered in Greek. 
Lastl}^, Roscius frequently played without a mask, and in this 
respect probably he did not stand alone; but, as far as we 
know, there never was any instance of it among the Greeks. 
The alteration in question might be favourable to the more 
brilliant display of his own skill, and the Romans, who were 
pleased with it, showed here also that they had a higher 
relish for the disproportionate and prominent talents of a 
virtuoso, than for the harmonious impression of a work of art 
considered as a whole. 

In the tragic literature of the Romans, two epochs are to be 
distinguished : the first that of Livius Andronicus, Nsevius, 
Ennius, and also Pacuvius and Attius, who both flourished 
somewhat later than Plautus and Terence; and the second, 
the refined epoch of the Augustan age. The former produced 
none but translators and remodellers of Greek works, but 
it is probable that they succeeded better in Tragedy than in 
Comedy. Elevation of expression is usually somewhat awk- 
ward in a language as yet imperfectly cultivated, but still its 
height may be attained by perseverance ; but to hit oiF the 
negligent grace of social wit requires natural humour and 
refinement. Here, however, (as well as in the case of Plautus 
and Terence,) we do not possess a single fragment of any 
work whose Greek original is extant, to enable us to 
judge of the accuracy and general felicity of the copy; but 
a speech of considerable length from Attius' Prometheus Vn- 
hound, is in no respect unworthy of .^schylus, and the versi- 
fication, also, is much more careful* than that of the Latin 

* In what metres could tliese tragedians have translated the Greek choral 
odes ? Horace declares the imitation, in Latin, of Pindar, whose lyrical 



THE AUGUSTAN AGE — ASINIUS POLLIO. 207 

comic writers generally. This earlier style was carried to 
perfection by Pacurius and Attius, whose pieces alone kept 
their place on the stage, and seem to have had many ad- 
mirers down to the times of Cicero, and even still later. 
Horace directs his jealous criticism against these, as well 
as all the other old poets. 

It was the ambition of the contemporaries of Augustus, to 
measure their powers with the Greeks in a more original 
manner ; but their labours were not attended with equal 
success in every department. The number of amateurs who 
attempted to shins in Tragedy was particularly great j and 
works of this kind by the Emperor himself even are men- 
tioned. Hence there is much in faA^our of the conjecture 
that Horace wrote his epistle to the Pisos, chiefly with the 
view of deterring these young men from so dangerous a 
career, being, in all probability, infected by the universal pas- 
sion, without possessing the requisite talents. One of the 
most renowned tragic poets of this age was the famous 
Asinius Pollio, a man of a violently impassioned disposition, 
as Pliny informs us, and who was fond of whatever bore the 
same character in works of fine art. It was he who brought 
with him from Rhodes, and erected at Rome, the well-known 
group of the Farnese BulL If his tragedies bore the same 
relation to those of Sophocles, which this bold, wild, but some- 
what overwrought group does to the calm sublimity of the 
Niobe, we have every reason to regret their loss. But 
Poilio's political influence might easily blind his contempora- 
ries to the true value of his poetical labours. Ovid, who tried 
so many departments of poetry, also attempted Tragedy, and 
was the author of a Medea. To judge from the wordy and 
commonplace displays of passion in his Heroides, we might 
expect from him, in Tragedy, at most, a caricature of Euri- 
pides. Quinctilian, however, asserts that he proved here, for 
once, what he might have done, had he chosen to restrain 

productions bear great resemblance to those of Tragedy, altogether impracti- 
cable. Probably they never ventured into the labyrinths of the choral 
strophes, which were neither calculated for the language nor for the ear of 
the Romans. Beyond the anapest, the tragedies of Seneca never ascend 
higher than a sapphic or choriambic verse, which, when monotonously 
repeated, is very disagreeable to the ear. 



208 THE ROMAN AND GREEK RELIGION. 

Himself instead of yielding to liis natural propensity to diffuse- 
ness. 

This, and all tlie otlier tragic attempts of the Augustan age, 
have perished. We cannot estimate with certainty the mag- 
nitude of the loss which we have here suffered, but from 
all appearances it is not extraordinarily great. — First of all 
the Grecian Tragedy had in Rome to struggle with all the 
disadvantages of a plant removed to a foreign soil ; the Roman 
religion was in some degree akin to that of the Greeks, (though 
by no means so completely identical with it as many people sup- 
pose,) but at all events the heroic mythology of Greece was first 
introduced into Rome by the poets, and was in no wise inter- 
woven with the national recollections, as was the case in so 
many ways with those of Greece. The ideal of a genuine 
Roman Tragedy floats before me dimly indeed, and in the 
background of ages, and with all the indistinctness which 
must surround an entity, which never issued out of the womb 
of possibility into reality. It would be altogether different 
in form and significance from that of the Greeks, and, in the 
old Roman sense, religious and patriotic. All truly creative 
poetry must proceed from the inward life of a j)eople, and 
from religion, the root of that life. The spirit of the Roman 
religion was however originally, and before the substance of 
it was sacrificed to foreign ornament, quite difierent from that 
of the Grecian. The latter was yielding and flexible to 
the hand of art, the former immutable beneath the rigorous 
jealousy of priestcraft. The Roman faith, and the customs 
founded on it, were more serious, more moral, and pious, dis- 
playing more insight into nature, and more magical and 
mysterious, than the Greek religion, at least than that part 
of it which was extrinsecal to the mysteries. As the Greek 
Tragedy represented the struggle of the free man with des- 
tiny, a true Roman Tragedy would exhibit the subjection 
of liuman motives to the holy and binding force of religion, 
and its visible presence in all ea,rthly things. But this spirit 
had been long extinct, before the want of a cultivated poetry 
"was first felt by them. Tlie Patricians, originally an Etruscan 
isacerdotal scliool, had become mere secular statesmen and 
warriors, who regarded their hereditary priesthood in no 
other light tlian that of a political form. Their sacred bocks, 
their Vedas, were become unintelligible to them, not so much 



r 



CHARACTER OF THE ROMANS. 209 



from obsoleteness of ctaracter, as because they no longer pos- 
sessed the higher knowledge which was the key to that 
sanctuary. What the heroic tales of the Latins might have 
become under an earlier development, as well as their peculiar 
colouring, we may still see, from some traces in Virgil, Pro- 
pertius, and Ovid, although even these poets did but handle 
them as matters of antiquity. 

Moreover, desirous as the Romans were of becoming thorough 
Hellenists, they wanted for it that milder humanity which is 
so distinctly traceable in Grecian history, poetry, and art, 
even in the time of Homer. From the most austere Adrtue, 
which buried every personal inclination, as Curtius did his 
life, in the bosom of father-land, they passed with fearful 
rapidity to a state of corruption, by avarice and luxury, 
equally without example. Never in their character did they 
belie the legend that their first founder was suckled, not at 
the breast of woman, but of a ravening she-wolf. They were 
the tragedians of the world's history, who exhibited many a 
deep tragedy of kings led in chains and pining in dungeons ; 
they were the iron necessity of all other nations; universal 
destroyers for the sake of raising at last, out of the ruins, the 
mausoleum of their own dignity and freedom, in the midst of 
the monotonous solitude of an obsequious world. To them it 
was not given to excite emotion by the tempered accents of 
mental suifering, and to touch with a light and delicate hand 
every note in the scale of feeling. They naturally sought 
also in Tragedy, by overleaping all intervening gradations, to 
reach at once the extreme, whether in the stoicism of heroic 
fortitude, or in the monstrous fury of criminal desire. Of 
all their ancient greatness nothing remained to them but the 
contempt of pain and death whenever an extravagant enjoy- 
ment of life must finally be exchanged for them. This seal, 
therefore, of their former grandeur they accordingly impressed 
on their tragic heroes withi a self-satisfied and ostentatious 
profusion. 

Finally, even in the age of cultivated literature, the dra- 
matic poets were still in want of a poetical public among a 
people fond, even to a degree of madness, of shows and spec- 
tacles. In the triumphal processions, the fights of gladiators, 
and of wild beasts, all the magnificence of the world, all the 
wonders of every clime, were brought before the eye of the 

o 



230 THE SENECA TRAGEDIES — MEDEA. 

spectator, who was glutted with the most violent scenes of 
blood. On nerves so steeled what effect could the more 
refined gradations of tragic pathos produce? It was the 
ambition of the powerful to exhibit to the people in one day, 
on stages erected for the purpose, and immediately afterwards 
destroyed, the enormous spoils of foreign or civil war. The 
relation which Pliny gives of the architectural decoration of 
the stage erected by Scaurus, borders on the incredible. 
When magnificence could be carried no farther, they endea- 
voured to surprise by the novelty of mechanical contrivances. 
Thus, a Roman, at his father's funeral solemnity, caused two 
theatres to be constructed, with their backs resting against 
each other, and made moveable on a single pivot, so that at 
the end of the play, they were wheeled round with all the 
spectators within them, and formed into one circus, in which 
gladiator combats were exhibited. In the gratification of the 
eye that of the ear was altogether lost; rope-dancers and 
white elephants were preferred to every kind of dramatic en- 
tertainment; the embroidered purple robe of the actor was 
applauded, as we are told by Horace, and so far was the great 
body of the spectators from being attentive and quiet, that he 
compares their noise to that of the roar of the ocean, or of a 
mountain forest in a storm. 

Only one sample of the tragical talent of the Romans has 
come down to us, from which, however, it would be unjust to 
form a judgment of the productions of better times; I allude 
to the ten tragedies which pass under Seneca's name. Their 
claim to this title appears very doubtful; perhaps it is founded 
merely on a circumstance which would lead rather to a dif- 
ferent conclusion ; that, namely, in one of them, the Octavia, 
Seneca himself appears among the dramatic personages. The 
opinions of the learned are very much divided on the subject; 
some ascribe them partly to Seneca the philosopher, and 
partly to his father the rhetorician; others, again, assume the 
existence of a Seneca, a tragedian, a diflferent person from 
both. It is generally allowed that the several pieces are nei- 
ther all from the same hand, nor were of the same age. For 
the honour of the Roman taste, one would be disposed to con- 
sider them the productions of a very late period of antiquity: 
but Quinctilian quotes a verse from the Medea of Seneca, 
whicli is found in the play of that name in our collection, and 



CENSURABLE CHARACTER OF THE SENECA TRAGEDIES. 211 

tlierefore no doubt can be raised against the authenticity of 
this piece, though it seems to be in no waj pre-eminent above 
the rest*. We find also in Lucan, a contemj)orary of Nero^ 
a similar display of bombast, which distorts everything great 
into nonsense. The state of constant outrage in which Rome 
was kept by a series of blood-thirsty tyrants, gave an unnatu- 
ral character even to eloquence and poetry. The same effect 
has been observed in similar periods of modern history. Un- 
der the wise and mild government of a Vespasian and a Titus, 
and more especially of a Trajan, the Romans returned to a 
purer taste. But whatever period may have given birth to 
the tragedies of Seneca, they are beyond description bombastic 
and frigid, unnatural both in character and action, revolting 
from their violation of propriety, and so destitute of theatrical 
effect, that I believe they were never meant to leave the rhe- 
torical schools for the stage. With the old tragedies, those 
sublime creations of the poetical genius of the Greeks, these 
have nothing in common, but the name, the outward form, 
and the mythological materials; and yet they seem to have 
been composed with the obvious purpose of surpassing them ; 
in which attempt they succeed as much as a hollow hyper- 
bole would in competition with a most fervent truth. Every 
tragical common-place is worried out to the last gasp; all 
is phrase; and even the most common remark is forced 
and stilted. A total poverty of sentiment is dressed out with 
wit and acuteness. There is fancy in them, or at least a 
phantom of it ; for they contain an example of the misapplica- 
tion of every mental faculty. The authors have found out 
the secret of being diffuse, even to wearisomeness, and at the 
same time so epigrammatically laconic, as to be often obscure 
and unintelligible. Their characters are neither ideal nor 
real beings, but misshapen gigantic puppets, who are set in 
motion at one time by the string of an unnatural heroism, and 
at another by that of a passion equally unnatural, which 
no guilt nor enormity can appal 

* The author of this Medea makes the heroine strangle her children 
before the eyes of the people, notwithstanding the admonition of Horace, 
who probably had some similar example of the Roman theatre before his 
eyes ; for a Greek would hardly have committed this error. The Roman 
tragedians must have had a particular rage for novelty and effect to seek 
them in such atrocities. 

o2 



212 IMITATION IN MODERN TIMES. 

In a liistory, therefore, of Dramatic Art, I should alto- 
gether have passed over the tragedies of Seneca, if, from a 
blind prejudice for everything which has come down to us 
from antiquity, they had not been often imitated in modern 
times. They were more early and more generally known 
than the Greek tragedies. Not only scholars, M^thout a feel- 
ing for art, have judged favourably of them, nay, preferred 
them to the Greek tragedies, but even poets have accounted 
them worth studying. The influence of Seneca on Corneille's 
idea of tragedy cannot be mistaken ; Racine too, in his Flwedra^ 
has condescended to borrow a good deal from him, and among 
other things, nearly the whole scene of the declaration of love, 
as may be seen in Brumoy's enumeration. 



DRAMATIC LITERATURE QF THE MODERNS. 213 



LECTURE XVI. 

The Italians — Pastoral Dramas of Tasso and Guarini — Small progress in 
Tragedy — Metastasio and Alfieri — Character of both — Comedies of 
Ariosto, Aretin, Porta — Improvisatore Masks — Goldoni — Gozzi — 

Latest state. 

Leaving now tlie productions of Classical Antiquity, we pro- 
ceed to tlie dramatic literature of the moderns. With respect 
to the order most convenient for treating our present subject, 
it may be doubtful whether it is better to consider, seriatim, 
what each nation has accomplished in this domain, or to pass 
continually from one to another, in the train of their recipro- 
cal but fluctuating influences. Thus, for instance, the Italian 
theatre, at its first revival, exercised originally an influence 
on the French, to be, however, greatly influenced in its turn 
by the latter. So, too, the French, before their stage attained 
its full maturity, borrowed still more from the Spaniards than 
from the Italians; in later times, Voltaire attempted to en- 
large their theatrical circle, on the model of the English; the 
attempt, however, was productive of no great efi'ect, even 
because everything had already been immutably fixed, in 
conformity with their ideas of imitation of the ancients, and 
their taste in art. The English and Spanish stages are nearly 
independent of all the rest, and also of each other; on those 
of other countries, however, they have exercised a great influ- 
ence, but experienced very little in return. But, to avoid 
the perplexity and confusion which would attend such a plan, 
it will be advisable to treat the several literatures separately, 
pointing out, at the same time, whatever efii"ects foreign in- 
fluence may have produced. This course is also rendered 
necessary, by the circumstance that among modern nations 
the principle of imitation of the ancients has in some pre- 
vailed, vrithout check or m^odification ; while in others, the 
romantic spirit predominated, or at least an originality alto- 
gether independent of classical models^ The former is the 



214 THE ITALIANS — TRISSION. 

case witli the Italians and French, and the latter with the 
English and Spaniards. 

I have already indicated, in passing, how even hefore the 
eruption of the northern conquerors had put an end to every- 
thing like art, the diffusion of Christianity led to the abolition 
of plays, which, both with Greeks and Romans, had become 
extremely corrupt. After the long sleep of the dramatic and 
theatrical spirit in the middle ages, which, however uninflu- 
enced by the classical models, began to awake again in the 
Mysteries and Moralities, the first attempt to imitate the 
ancients in the theatre, as well as in the other arts and 
departments of poetry, was made by the Italians. The 
Sophonisha of Trissino, which belongs to the beginning of the 
sixteenth century, is generally named as the first regular 
tragedy. This literary curiosity I cannot boast of having 
read, but from other sources I know the author to be a spirit- 
less pedant. Those even of the learned, who are most zealous 
for the imitation of the ancients, pronounce it a dull laboured 
work, without a breath of true poetical spirit; we may there- 
fore, without further examination, safely appeal to their judg- 
ment upon it. It is singular, that while all ancient forms, 
even the Chorus, are scrupulously retained, the province of 
mythology is abandoned for that of Roman history. 

The pastoral dramas of Tasso and Guarini (which belong to 
the middle of the sixteenth century), whose subjects, though 
for the most part not tragical, are yet noble, not to say ideal, 
may be considered to form an epoch in the history of dramatic 
poetry. They are furnished with choruses of the most ravish- 
ing beauty, which, however, are but so many lyrical voices 
floating in the air; they do not appear as personages, and still 
less are they introduced with due regard to probability as con- 
stant witnesses of the represented actions. These compositions 
were, there is no doubt, designed for the theatre; and they 
were represented at Ferrara and at Turin with great pomp, 
and we may presume with eminent taste. This fact, however, 
serves to give us an idea of the infantine state of the theatre 
at that time; although, as a whole, they have each their plot 
and catastrophe, the action nevertheless stands still in some 
scenes. Their popularity, therefore, would lead us to con- 
clude that the spectators, little accustomed to theatrical 
amusements, were consequently not difficult to please, and 



TRAGEDY OF THE ITALIANS. 215 

patiently followed tlie progress of a beautiful poem, even 
though deficient in dramatic development. The Pastor Fido, 
in particular, is an inimitable production; original and yet 
classical ; romantic in the spirit of the love which it portrays ; 
in its form impressed with the grand but simple stamp ot 
classical antiquity; and uniting with the sweet triflings of 
poetry, the high and chaste beauty of feeling. No poet has 
succeeded so well as Guarini in combining the peculiarities of 
the modern and antique. He displays a profound feeling of 
the essence of Ancient Tragedy ; for the idea of fate pervades 
the subject-matter, and the principal characters may be said 
to be ideal : he has also introduced caricatures, and on that 
account called the composition a Tragi-Comedy ; but it is not 
from the vulgarity of their manners that they are caricatures, 
as from their over-lofty sentiments, just as in Ancient Tragedy 
the subordinate personages ever are invested with more or less 
of the general dignity. 

The great importance of this work, however, belongs rather 
to the History of Poetry in general ; on Dramatic Poetry it had 
no eflfect, as in truth it was not calculated to produce any. 

I then return to what may properly be called the Tragedy 
of the Italians. After the Sophonisha, and a few pieces of the 
same period, which Calsabigi calls the first tragic lispings of 
Italy, a number of works of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 
eighteenth centuries are cited ; but of these none made, or at 
any rate maintained any considerable reputation. Although 
all these writers, in intention at least, laboured to follow the 
rules of Aristotle, their tragical abortions are thus described 
by Calsabigi, a critic entirely devoted to the French system : 
— "Distorted, complicated, improbable plots, ill-understood 
scenic regulations, useless personages, double plots, inconsistent 
characters, gigantic or childish thoughts, feeble verses, affected 
phrases, the poetry neither harmonious nor natural; all this 
decked out with ill-timed descriptions and similes, or idle phi- 
losophical and political disquisitions ; in every scene some 
silly amour, with all the trite insipidity of common-place sen- 
timentality ; of true tragic energy, of the struggle of conflict- 
ing passions, of overpowering theatrical catastrophes, not the 
slightest trace." Amongst the lumber of this forgotten litera- 
ture we cannot stop to rummage, and we shall therefore 
proceed immediately to the consideration of the Merope of 



216 CALSABIGl's CRITICISM — MAFFEI. 

Maffei, which appeared in the beginning of the eighteenth 
century. Its success in Italy, on its first publication, was 
great; and in other countries, owing to the competition of 
Voltaire, it also obtained an extraordinary reputation. The 
object of both Maiiei and Voltaire was, from Hyginus' ac- 
count of its contents, to restore in some measure a lost piece 
of Euripides, which the ancients highly commended, Vol- 
taire, pretending to eulogize, has given a rival's criticism 
of Maffei's 21erope; there is also a lengthened criticism on it 
in the Dramaturgie of Lessing, as clever as it is impartial. 
He pronounces it, notwithstanding its purity and simplicity 
of taste, the work of a learned antiquary, rather than of a 
mind naturally adapted for, and practised in the dramatic art. 
We must therefore judge accordingly of the previous state 
of the drama in the country where such a work could arrive 
at so great an estimation. 

After Mafiei came Metastasio and Alfieri ; the first before 
the middle, and the other in the latter half of the eighteenth 
century. I here include the musical dramas of Metastasio, 
because they aim in general at a serious and pathetic effect, 
because they lay claim to ideality of conception, and because 
in their external form there is a partial observance of w^hat is 
considered as belonging to the regularity of a tragedy. Both 
these poets, though totally differing in their aim, were never- 
theless influenced in common by the productions of the French 
stage. Both, it is true, declared themselves too decidedly 
against the authority of this school to be considered properly 
as belonging to it ; they assure us that, in order to preserve 
their own originality, they purposely avoided reading the 
French models. But this very precaution appears somewhat 
suspicious : whoever feels himself perfectly firm and secure in 
his own independence, may without hesitation study the 
works of his predecessors ; he will thus be able to derive from 
them many an improvement in his art, and yet stamp on his 
own productions a peculiar character But there is nothing 
on this head that I can urge in support of these poets : if it be 
really true that they never, or at least not before the comple- 
tion of their works, perused the works of French tragedians, 
some invisible influence must have diffused itself through the 
atmosphere, which, without their being conscious of it, deter- 
mined them. This is at once conceivable from the great 



THE OPERA FOUNDED ON FRENCH TRAGEDY. 217 

estimation which, since the time of Louis XIV., French 
Tragedy has enjoyed, not only with the learned, but also 
with the great world throughout Europe; from the new- 
modelling of several foreign theatres to the fashion of the 
French; from the prevailing spirit of criticism, with which 
negative correctness was everything, and in which France gave 
the tone to the literature of other countries. The affinity is 
in both undeniable, but, from the intermixture of the musical 
element in Metastasio, it is less striking than in Aliieri. I 
trace it in the total absence of the romantic spirit ; in a certain 
fanciless insipidity of composition; in the manner of handling 
mythological and historical materials, which is neither pro- 
perly mythological nor historical; lastly, in the aim to pro- 
duce a tragic purity, which degenerates into monotony. The 
unities of both place and time have b^en uniformly observed 
by Alfieri; the latter only could be respected by Metastasio, 
as change of scene is necessary to the opera poet. Alfieri 
affords in general no food for the eyes. In his plots he aimed 
at the antique simplicity, while Metastasio, in his rich in- 
trigues, followed Spanish models, and in particular borrowed 
largely from Calderon*. Yet the harmonious ideality of the 
ancients was as foreign to the one, as the other was destitute 
of the charm of the romantic poets, which arises from the 
indissoluble mixture of elements apparently incongruous. 

Even before Metastasio, Apostolo Zeno had, as it is called, 
purified the opera, a phrase which, in the sense of modern 
critics, often means emptying a thing of all its substance and 
vigour. He formed it on the model of Tragedy, and more 
especially of French Tragedy ; and a too faithful, or rather too 
slavish approximation to this model, is the very cause why he 
left so little room for musical development, on which account 
his pieces were immediately driven from the stage of the 
opera by those of his more expert successor. It is in general 
an artistic mistake for one species to attempt, at evident dis- 
advantage, that which another more perfectly accomplishes, 
and in the attempt, to sacrifice its own peculiar excellencies. 
It originates in a chilling idea of regularity, once for all esta- 
blished for every kind alike, instead of ascertaining the spirit 
and peculiar laws of each distinct species. 

* This is expressly asserted by the learned Spaniard Arteaga, in his 
Italian work on the History of the Opera. 



218 METASTASIO HIS TRAGICAL PRETENSIONS. 

Metastasio quickly threw Zeno into the shade, since, "with 
the same object in view, he displayed greater flexibility in 
accommodating himself to the requisitions of the musician. 
The merits which have gained for him the reputation of a 
classic among the Italians of the present day, and which, in 
some degree^ have made him with them what Racine is with 
the French, are generally the perfect purity, clearness, ele- 
gance, and sweetness of his language, and, in particular, the 
soft melody and the extreme loveliness of his songs. Perhaps 
no poet ever possessed in a greater degree the talent of briefly 
bringing together all the essential features of a pathetic situa- 
tion; the songs with which the characters make their exit, 
are almost always the purest concentrated musical extract of 
their state of mind. But, at the same time, we must own that 
all his delineations of passion are general : his pathos is puri- 
fied, not only from all characteristic, as well as from all con- 
templative matter; and, consequently, the poetic represen- 
tation, unencumbered thereby, proceeds with a light and easy 
motion, leaving to the musician the care of a richer and fuller 
development. Metastasio is musical throughout ; but, to fol- 
low up the simile, we may observe, that of poetical music, 
melody is the only part that he possesses, being deficient in har- 
monious compass, and in the mysterious efi'ects of counterpoint. 
Or, to express myself in different terms, he is musical, but in 
no respect picturesque. His melodies are light and pleasant, 
but they are constantly repeated with little or no variation : 
when we have read a few of his pieces, we know them all; 
and the composition as a whole is always without significance. 
His heroes, like those of Corneille, are gallant; his heroines 
tender, like those of Racine ; but this has been too severely 
censured by many, without a due consideration of the require- 
ments of the Opera. To me he appears censurable only for 
the selection of subjects, whose very seriousness could not 
without great incongruity be united with such triflings. Had 
Metastasio not adopted great historical names — had he bor- 
rowed his subject-matter more frequently from mythology, or 
from still more fanciful fictions — had he made always the same 
happy choice as that in his A chilles in Scyros, where, from the 
nature of the story, the Heroic is interwoven with the Idyllic, 
we might then have pardoned him if he invariably depicts his 
personages as in love. Then should we, if only we ourselves 



METASTASIO — HIS STYLE OF COMPOSITION. 219 

understood what ought to be expected from an opera, willingly 
have permitted him to indulge in feats of fancy still more 
venturesome. By his tragical pretensions he has injured him- 
self : his powers were inadequate to support them, and the 
seductive movingness at which he aimed was irrecoucileablo 
with overpowering energy. I have heard a celebrated Italian 
poet assert that his countrymen were moved to tears by 
Metastasio. We cannot get over such a national testimony 
as this, except by throwing it back on the nation itself as a 
symptom of its own moral temperament. It appears to me 
undeniable, that a certain melting softness in the sentiments, 
and the expression of them, rendered Metastasio the delight of 
his contemporaries. He has lines which, from their dignity 
and vigorous compression, are perfectly suited to Tragedy, and 
yet we perceive in them an indescribable something, which 
seems to show that they were designed for the flexible throat 
of a soprano singer. 

The astonishing success of Metastasio throughout all Eu- 
rope, and especially at courts, must also in a great measure be 
attributed to his being a court poet, not merely by profession, 
but also by the style in which he composed, and which was in 
every respect that of the tragedians of the era of Louis XIV. 
A brilliant surface without depth; prosaic sentiments and 
thoughts decked out with a choice poetical language; a 
courtly moderation throughout, whether in the display of 
passion, or in the exhibition of misfortune and crime; ob- 
servance of the proprieties, and an apparent morality, for in 
these dramas voluptuousness is but breathed, never named, 
and the heart is always in every mouth; all these properties 
could not fail to recommend such tragical miniatures to the 
world of fashion. There is an unsparing pomp of noble sen- 
timents, but withal most strangely associated with atrocious 
baseness. Not unfrequently does an injured fair one dispatch 
a despised lover to stab the faithless one from behind. In 
almost every piece there is a crafty knave who plays the 
traitor, for whom, however, there is ready prepared some 
royal magnanimity, to make all right at the last. The facility 
with which base treachery is thus taken into favour, as if it 
were nothing more than an amiable weakness, would have 
been extremely revolting, if there had been anything serious 
in this array of tragical incidents. But the poisoned cup is 



220 METASTASIO — DEPRECIATION OF HIS OPERAS. 

always seasonably dashed from the lips; the dagger either 
drops, or is forced from the murderous hand, before the deadly 
blow can be struck ; or if injury is inflicted, it is never more 
than a slight scratch; and some subterranean exit is always at 
hand to furnish the means of flight from the dungeon or other 
imminent peril. The dread of ridicule, that conscience of all 
poets who write for the world of fashion, is very visible in the 
care with which he avoids all bolder flights as yet unsanctioned 
by precedent, and abstains from everything supernatural, be- 
cause such a public carries not with it, even to the fantastic 
stage of the opera, a belief in wonders. Yet this fear has not 
always served as a sure guide to Metastasio : besides such an 
extravagant use of the " aside," as often to appear ludicrous, 
the subordinate love-stories frequently assume the appearance 
of being a parody on the others. Here the Abbe, thoroughly 
acquainted with the various gradations of Cicisbeism, its pains 
and its pleasures, at once betrays himself. To the favoured 
lover there is generally opposed an importunate one, who 
presses his suit without return, the soffione among the cicishei; 
the former loves in silence, and frequently finds no opportunity 
till the end of the piece, of offering his little word of declara- 
tion; we might call him i\\Q joatito. This unintermitting love- 
chase is not confined to the male parts, but extended also to 
the female, that everywhere the most varied and brilliant con- 
trasts may offer themselves. 

A few only of the operas of Metastasio still keep posses- 
sion of the stage, owing to the change of musical taste, which 
demands a different arrangement of the text. Metastasio 
seldom has choruses, and his airs are almost always for a single 
voice : with these the scenes uniformly close, and with them 
the singer never fails to make his exit. It appears as if, 
proud of having played off this highest triumph of feeling, he 
left the spectators to their astonishment at witnessing the 
chirping of the passions in the recitatives rising at last in the 
air, to the fuller nightingale tones. At present we require in 
an opera more frequent duos and trios, and a crashing finale. 
In fact, the most difl&cult problem for the opera poet is to 
reduce the mingled voices of conflicting passions in one per- 
vading harmony, without destroying any one of them: a 
problem, however, which is generally solved by both poet and 
musician in a very arbitrary manner. 



ALFIERi: METASTASIO REVERSED. 221 

Alfieri, a bold and proud man, disdained to please by such. 
meretricious means as those of wbicli Metastasio had availed 
himself : he was highly indignant at the lax immorality of 
his countrymen, and the degeneracy of his contemporaries in 
general. This indignation stimulated him to the exhibition 
of a manly strength of mind, of stoical principles and free 
opinions, and on the other hand, led him to depict the horrors 
and enormities of despotism. This enthusiasm, however, was 
by far more political and moral than poetical, and we must 
praise his tragedies rather as the actions of the man than as 
the works of the poet. From his great disinclination to pur- 
sue the same path with Metastasio, he naturally fell into the 
opposite extreme: I might not unaptly call him a Metas- 
tasio reversed. If the muse of the latter be a love-sick 
nymph, Alfieri's muse is an Amazon. He gave Jier a Spartan 
education ; he aimed at being the Cato of the theatre ; but he 
forgot that, though the tragic poet may himself be a stoic, 
tragic poetry itself, if it would move and agitate us, must 
never be stoical. His language is so barren of imagery, 
that his characters seem altogether devoid of fancy; it is 
broken and harsh : he wished to steel it anew, and in the 
process it not only lost its splendour, but became brittle and 
inflexible. Not only is he not musical, but positively anti- 
musical; he tortures our feelings by the harshest dissonances, 
without any softening or solution. Tragedy is intended by 
its elevating sentiments in some degree to emancipate our 
minds from the sensual despotism of the body; but really to 
do this, it must not attempt to strip this dangerous gift of 
heaven of its charms: but rather it must point out to us the 
sublime majesty of our existence, though surrounded on all 
sides by dangerous abysses. When we read the tragedies of 
Alfieri, the world looms upon us dark and repulsive. A style 
of composition which exhibits the ordinary course of human 
affairs in a gloomy and troublous light, and whose extraor- 
dinary catastrophes are horrible, resembles a climate where 
the perpetual fogs of a northern winter should be joined with 
the fiery tempests of the torrid zone. Profound and delicate 
delineation of character is as little to be looked for in Alfieri 
as in Metastasio : he does but exhibit the opposite but equally 
partial view of human nature. His characters also are cast 
in the mould of naked general notions^ and he frequently 



222 ALFIERI COMPARED WITH RACmE. 

paints the extremes of black and wliite^ side by side, and in 
unrelieved contrast. His villains for tlie most part betray 
all their deformity, in their outward conduct; this might, 
perhaps, be allowed to pass, althougb indeed such a picture 
will hardly enable us to recognise them in real life ; but liis 
virtuous persons are not amiable, and this is a defect open to 
much graver censure. Of all seductive graces, and even of 
all subordinate charms and ornaments, (as if the degree in 
whicb nature herself had denied them to this caustic genius 
had not been sufficient,) he studiously divested himself, 
because as he thought it would best advance his more earnest 
moral aim, forgetting, however, that the poet has no other 
means of swaying the minds of men than the fascinations of 
his art. 

From the tragedy of the Greeks, with which he did not 
become acquainted until the end of his career, he was sepa- 
rated by a wide chasm; and I cannot consider his pieces as an 
improvement on the French tragedy. Their structure is more 
simple, the dialogue in some cases less conventional; he has 
also got rid of confidants, and this has been highly extolled as 
a difficulty overcome, and an improvement on the French 
system ; he had the same aversion to chamberlains and court 
ladies in poetry as in real life. But in captivating and bril- 
liant eloquence, his pieces bear no comparison with the better 
French tragedies; they also display much less skill in the 
plot, its gradual march, preparations, and transitions. Com- 
pare, for instance, the Britannicus of Eacine with the Octama 
of Alfieri. Both drew their materials fram Tacitus : but 
which of them has shown the more perfect understanding of 
this profound master of the human heart? Racine appears 
here before us as a man who was thoroughly acquainted with 
all the corruptions of a court, and had beheld ancient Rome 
under the Emperors, reflected in this mirror of observation. 
On the other hand, if Alfieri did not expressly assure us that 
his Octavia was a daughter of Tacitus, we should be inclined to 
believe that it was modelled on that of the pretended Seneca. 
The colours with which he paints his tyrants are borrowed 
from the rhetorical exercises of the school. Who can recog- 
nise, in his blustering and raging Nero, the man who, as 
Tacitus says, seemed formed by nature '• to veil hatred with 
caresses ?" — the cowardly Sybarite, fantastically vain till the 



ALPIERi: HIS VIEW OF THE TRAGIC STYLE. 223 

Tery last moment of his existence^ cruel at first;, from fear, and 
afterwards from inordinate lust. 

If Alfieri has, in this case, been untrue to Tacitus, in the 
Conspiracy of the Pazzi he has equally failed in his attempt to 
translate Macchiavel into the language of poetry. In this 
and other pieces from modern history, the Filippo for instance, 
and the Don Garcia, he has by no means hit the spirit and 
tone of modern times, nor even of his own nation : his ideas 
of the tragic style were opposed to the observance of every- 
thing like a local and determinate costume. On the other hand 
it is astonishing to observe the subjects which he has bor- 
rowed from the tragic cycles of the Greeks, such as the Ores- 
tiad, for instance, losing under his hands all their heroic 
magnificence, and assuming a modern, not to say a vulgar 
air. He has succeeded best in painting the public life of the 
Eoman republic ; and it is a great merit in the Virginia that 
the action takes place in the forum, and in part before the 
eyes of the people. In other pieces, while the Unity of Place 
is strictly observed, the scene chosen is for the most part so 
invisible and indeterminate, that one would fain imagine it is 
some out-of-the-way corner, where nobody comes but persons 
involved in painful and disagreeable transactions. Again, 
the stripping his kings and heroes, for the sake of simplicity, 
of all their external retinue, produces the impression that the 
world is actually depopulated around them. This stage- 
solitude is very striking in Saul, where the scene is laid before 
two armies in battle-array, on the point of a decisive engage- 
ment. And yet, in other respects this piece is favourably dis- 
, tinguished from the rest, by a certain Oriental splendour, and 
the lyrical sublimity in which the troubled mind of Saul 
gives utterance to itself. Myrrlia is a perilous attempt to 
treat with propriety a subject equally revolting to the senses 
and the feelings. The Spaniard Arteaga has criticised this 
tragedy and the Filippo with great severity but with great 
truth. 

I reserve for my notice of the present condition of the 
Italian theatre all that I have to remark on the successors of 
Alfieri, and go back in order of time in order to give a short 
sketch of the history of Comedy. 

In this department the Italians began with an imitation of 
the ancients^ which was not suJfficiently attentive to the diflfer- 



224 ITALIAN COMEDY. PIETRO ARETINO, 

ence of times and manners, and translations of Plautus and 
Terence were usually represented in their earliest theatres; 
they soon fell, lioweA^er, into the most singular extravagan- 
cies. We have comedies of Ariosto and Macchiavelli — those 
of the former are in rhymeless verse, versi sdruccioli, and those 
of the latter in prose. Such men could produce nothing 
which did not bear traces of their genius. But Ariosto in the 
structure of his pieces kept too close to the stories of the 
ancients, and, therefore, did not exhibit any true living pic- 
ture of the manners of his own times. In Macchiavelli this 
is only the case in his Clitia, an imitation of Plautus; the 
Mandragola, and another comedy, which is without a name, 
are sufficiently Florentine; but, unfortunately, they are not 
of a very edifying description. A simple deceived husband, 
and a hypocritical and pandering monk, form the principal 
parts. Tales, in the style of the free and merry tales of Boc- 
cacio, are boldly and bluntly, I cannot say, dramatised : for 
with respect to theatrical effect they are altogether inartificial, 
but given in the form of dialogue. As Mimes, that is, as pic- 
tures of the language of ordinary life with all its idioms, these 
productions are much to be commended. In one point they 
resemble the Latin comic poets ; they are not deficient in in- 
decency. This was, indeed, their general tone. The come- 
dies of Pietro Aretino are merely remarkable for their shame- 
less immodesty. It almost seems as if these writers, deeming 
the spirit of refined love inconsistent with the essence of 
Comedy, had exhausted the very lees of the sensual amours of 
Greek Comedy. 

At a still earlier period, in the beginning, namely, of the 
sixteenth century, an unsuccessful attempt had been made in 
the Virginia of Accolti to dramatise a serious novel, as a mid- 
dle species between Comedy and Tragedy, and to adorn it 
with poetical splendour. Its subject is the same story on. 
which Shakspeare's AlVs Well that Ends Well, is founded. 
J have never had an opportunity of reading it, but the un- 
favourable report of a literary man disposes me to think 
favourably of it*. According to his description, it resembles 
the older pieces of the Spanish stage before it had attained 
to maturity of form, and in common with them it employs the 

* Bouterwelc's Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit. — Erster 
Band, s. 334, &c. 



t 



ITALIAN COMEDY — GIAMBATISTA PORTA. 225 

stanza for its metre. The attempts at romantic drama have 
always failed in Italy; whereas in Spain, on the contrary, all 
endeavours to model the theatre according to the rules of the 
ancients, and latterly of the French, have from the difference 
of national taste uniformly been abortive. 

We have a comedy of Tasso's, Gli Intrichi cV Amove, which 
ought rather to be called a lengthy romance in the form of 
dialogue. So many and such wonderful events are crowded 
together within the narrow limit of five acts, that one inci- 
dent treads closely upon the heels of another, without being 
in the least accounted for by human motives, so as to give to 
the whole an insupportable hardness. Criminal designs are 
portrayed with indifference, and the merriment is made to 
consist in the manner in which some accident or other inva- 
riably frustrates their consequences. We cannot here recog- 
nise the Tasso whose nice sense of love, chivalry, and honour 
speaks so delightfully in the Jerusalem Delivered, and on 
this ground it has even been doubted whether this work be 
really his. The richness of invention, if we may give this 
name to a rude accumulation of incidents, is so great, that the 
attention is painfully tortured in the endeavour to keep clear 
and disentangled the many and diversely crossing threads. 

We have of this date a multitude of Italian comedies on a 
similar plan, only with less order and connexion, and whose 
aim apparently is to delight by means of indecency. A para- 
site and procuress are standing characters in all. Among 
the comic poets of this class, Giambatista Porta deserves to 
be distinguished. His plots, it is true, are like the rest, imi- 
tations of Plautus and Terence, or dramatised tales; but, 
throughout the love-dialogues, on which he seems to have 
laboured with peculiar fondness, there breathes a tender feel- 
ing which rises even from the midst of the rudeness of the old 
Italian Comedy, and its generally uncongenial materials. 

In the seventeenth century, when the Spanish theatre flou- 
rished in all its glory, the Italians seem to have borrowed 
frequently from it; but not without misemploying and disfi- 
guring wJaatever they so acquired. The neglect of the regular 
stage increased with the all-absorbing passion for the opera, 
and with the growing taste of the multitude for improvisatory 
farces with standing masks. The latter are not in themselves 
to be despised : they serve to fix, as it were, so many central 

P 



22G ITALIAN COMEDY GOLDONI MASKED COMEDY 

points of the national character in the comic exhibition, by 
the external peculiarities of speech, dress, &c. Their constant 
recurrence does not by any means preclude the greatest pos- 
sible diversity in the plot of the pieces, even as in chess, with 
a small number of men, of which each has his fixed move- 
ment, an endless number of combinations is possible. But as 
to extemporary j^laying, it no doubt readily degenerates into 
insipidity; and this may have been the case even in Italy, 
notwithstanding the great fund of drollery and fantastic wit, 
and a peculiar felicity in farcical gesticulation, which the 
Italians possess. 

About the middle of the last century, Goldoni appeared as 
the reformer of Italian Comedy, and his success was so great, 
that he remained almost exclusively in possession of the comic 
stage. He is certainly not deficient in theatrical skill ; but, 
as the event lias proved, he is wanting in that solidity, that 
depth of characterization, that novelty and richness of inven- 
tion, which are necessary to ensure a lasting reputation. His 
pictures of manners are true, but not sufficiently elevated 
above the range of eA^ery-day life ; he has exhausted the sur- 
face of life; and as there is little progression in his dramas, 
and every thing turns usually on the same point, this adds 
to the impression of shallowness and ennui, as characteristic 
of the existing state of society. Willingly would he have 
abolished masks altogether, but he could hardly have com- 
pensated for them out of his own resources; however, he 
retained only a few of them, as Harlequin, Brighella, and 
Pantaloon, and limited their parts. And yet he fell again 
into a great uniformity of character, which, indeed, he partly 
confesses in his repeated use of the same names : for instance, 
his Beatrice is always a lively, and his Rosaum a feeling young 
maiden; and as for any farther distinction, it is not to be 
found in him. 

The excesaive admiration of Goldoni, and the injury sus- 
tained thereby by the masked comedy, for which the company 
of Sacchi in Venice possessed the highest talents, gave rise to 
the dramas of Gozzi. They are fairy tales in a dramatic 
form, in which, however, along side of the wonderful, versified, 
and more serious part, he employed the whole of the masks, 
and allowed them full and unrestrained development of their 
peculiarities. They, if ever any were, are pieces for efi'ect, 



ITALIAN COMEDY GOZZI. 227 

of great boldness of plot, still more fantastic tlian romantic; 
even though Gozzi was the first among the comic poets of 
Italy to show any true feeling for honour and love. The exe- 
cution does not betoken either care or skill, but is sketchily 
dashed off. With all his whimsical boldness he is still quite a 
popular writer; the principal motives are detailed with the 
most unambiguous perspicuity, all the touches are coarse and 
vigorous : he says, he knows well that his countrymen are 
fond of robust situations. After his imagination had revelled 
to satiety among Oriental tales, he took to re-modelling Spa- 
nish plays, and particularly those of Calderon ; but here he is, 
in my opinion, less deserving of praise. By him the ethereal 
and delicately-tinted poetry of the Spaniard is uniformly vul- 
garised, and deepened with the most glaring colours; while 
the weight of his masks draws the aerial tissue to the 
ground, for the humorous introduction of the gracioso in the 
Spanish is of far finer texture. On the other hand, the won- 
derful extravagance of the masked parts serves as an admi- 
rable contrast to the wild marvels of fairy tale. Thus the 
character of these pieces was, in the serious part, as well as in. 
the accompanying drollery, equally removed from natural 
truth. Here Gozzi had fallen almost accidentally on a fund 
of whose value he was not, perhaps, fully aware : his pro- 
saical, and for the most part improvisatory, masks, forming 
altogether of themselves the irony on the poetical part. What 
I here mean by irony, I shall explain more fully when I come 
to the justification of the mixture of the tragic and comic in 
the romantic drama of Shakspeare and Calderon. At present 
I shall only observe, that it is a sort of confession interwoven 
into the representation itself, and more or less distinctly ex- 
pressed, of its overcharged one-sidedness in matters of fancy 
and feeling, and by means of which the equipoise is again 
restored. The Italians were not, however, conscious of this, 
and Gozzi did not find any followers to carry his rude sketches 
to a higher degree of perfection. Instead of combining like 
him, only with greater refinement, the charms of wonderful 
poetry with exhilarating mirth ; instead of comparing Gozzi 
with the foreign masters of the romantic drama, whom he 
resembles notwithstanding his great disparity, and from the 
unconscious affinity between them in spirit and plan, drawing 
the conclusion that the principle common to both was founded 

p2 



228 ITALIAN COMEDY — LATEST STATE. 

in nature ; the Italians contented themselves with considering 
the pieces of Gozzi as the wild ofispring of an extravagant 
imagination, and with banishing them from the stage. The 
comedy with masks is held in contempt by all who pretend 
to any degree of refinement, as if they were too wise for it, 
and is abandoned to the vulgar, in the Sunday representions 
at the theatres and in the puppet-shows. Although this con- 
tempt must have had an injurious influence on the masks, 
preventing, as it does, any actor of talent from devoting him- 
self to them, so that there are no examples now of the spirit 
and wit with which they were formerly filled up, still the 
Commedia delV Arte is the only one in Italy where we can 
meet with original and truly theatrical entertainment*. 

In Tragedy the Italians generally imitate Alfieri, who, 
although it is the prcA'ailing fashion to admire him, is too bold 
and manly a thinker to be tolerated on the stage. They 
have produced some single pieces of merit, but the principles 
of tragic art which Alfieri followed are altogether false, 
and in the bawling and heartless declamation of their actors, 
this tragic poetry, stripped with stoical severity of all the 
charms of grouping, of musical harmony, and of every 
tender emotion, is represented with the most deadening 
uniformity aud monotony. As all the rich rewards are re- 
served for the singers, it is only natural that their players, 
who are only introduced as a sort of stop-gaps between 
singing and dancing, should, for the most part, not even pos- 
sess the very elements of their art, viz., pure pronunciation, and 
practised memory. They seem to have no idea that their 
parts can be got by heart, and hence, in an Italian theatre, 
we hear every piece as it were twice over; the prompter 
speaking as loud as a good player elsewhere, and the actors 
in order to be distinguished from him bawling most insuflfer- 
ably. It is exceedingly amusing to see the prompter, when, 

* A few years ago, I saw in Milan an excellent Truftaldin or Hai-leqnin, 
and here and there in obscure theatres, and even in puppet-shows, admi- 
rable representations of the old traditional jokes of the country. [Unfor- 
tunately, on my last visit to Milan, my friend was no longer to be met 
with. Under the French rule, Harlequin's merry occupation had been 
proscribed in the Great Theatres, from a cai-e, it was alleged, for the dig- 
nity of man. The Puppet-theatre of Gerolamo still flourishes, however, 
but a stranger finds it difficult to follow the jokes of the Piedmontese and 
Milan Masks.— Last Edition,] 



ITALIAN COMEDY — GIOVANNI PINDEMONTI. 229 

from the general forgetfulness^ a scene threatens to fall into 
confusion, labouring away, and stretching out his head like a 
serpent from his hole, hurrying through the dialogue before 
the different speakers. Of all the actors in the world,.! con- 
ceive those of Paris to have their parts best by heart ; in this, 
as well as in the knov>dedge of versification, the Germans are 
far inferior to them. 

One of their living poets, Giovanni Pindemonti, has endea- 
voured to introduce greater extent, variety, and nature into his 
historical plays, but he has been severely handled by their 
critics for descending from the height of the cothurnus to 
attain that truth of circumstance without which it is impos- 
sible for this species of drama to exist ; perhaps also for devi- 
ating from the strict observation of the traditional rules, so 
blindly worshipped by them. If the Italian verse be in fact 
so fastidious as not to consort with many historical peculiari- 
ties, modern names and titles for instance, let them write partly 
in prose, and call the production not a tragedy, but an historical 
drama. It seems in general to be assumed as an undoubted 
principle, that the verso sciolto, or rhjnneless line, of eleven 
syllables, is alone fit for the drama, but this does not seem 
to me to be by any means proved. This verse, in variety 
and metrical signification, is greatly inferior to the English, 
and German rhymeless iambic, from its uniform feminine 
termination, and from there being merely an accentuation in 
Italian, without any syllabic measure. Moreover, from the 
frequent transition of the sense from verse to verse, according 
to every possible division, the lines flow into one another 
without its being possible for the ear to separate them. Al- 
fieri imagined that he had found out the genuine dramatic 
manner of treating this verse correspondent to the form of his 
own dialogue, which consists of simply detached periods, or 
rather of propositions entirely unperiodical and abruptly ter- 
minated. It is possible that he carried into his works a 
personal peculiarity, for he is said to have been extremely 
laconic ; he was also, as he himself relates, influenced by the 
example of Seneca: but how difierent a lesson might he have 
learned from the Greeks ! We do not, it is true, in conver- 
sation, connect our language so closely as in an oratorical 
harangue, but the opposite extreme is equally unna,tural. 
Even in our common discourses, we observe a certain con- 



230 ITALIAN COMEDY — VERSIFICATION. 

tinuity, we give a development both to arguments and 
objections, and in an instant passion will animate us to fulness 
of expression, to a flow of eloquence, and even to lyrical sub- 
limity. The ideal dialogue of Tragedy may therefore find 
in actual conversation all the various tones and turns of 
poetry, with the exception of epic repose. The metre there- 
fore of Metastasio, and before him, of Tasso and Guarini, 
in their pastoral dramas, seems to me much more agreeable 
and suitable than the monotonous verse of eleven syllables : 
they intermingle with it verses of seven syllables, and occa- 
sionally, after a number of blank lines, introduce a pair of 
rhymes, and even insert a rhyme in the middle of a verse. 
From this the transition to more measured strophes, either 
in ottave rime, or in direct lyrical metres, would be easy. 
Khyme, and the connexion which it forms, have nothing in 
them inconsistent with the essence of dramatic dialogue, and 
the objection to change of measure in the drama rests merely 
on a chilling idea of regularity. 

No suitable versification for Comedy has yet been invented 
in Italy. The verso sciolto, it is well known, does not answer; 
it is not sufficiently familiar. The verse of twelve syllables, 
with a sdrucciolo termination selected by Ariosto, is much 
better, resembling the trimeter of the ancients, but is still 
somewhat monotonous. It has been, however, but little cul- 
tivated. The j\Ia.rtellian verse, a bad imitation of the Alex- 
andrine, is a dowciight torture to the ear. Chiari, and 
occasionally Goldoni, came at last to use it, and Gozzi by 
way of derision. It still remains therefore to the prejudice 
of a more elegant style of prose. 

Of Comedy, the modern Italians have nothing worth the 
name. Vv^hat they have, are nothing but pictures of manners 
still more dull and superficial than those of Goldoni, without 
drollery, or invention, and from their every-day common- 
place, downright disagreeable. They have, on the other 
hand, acquired a true relish for the sentimental drama and 
familiar tragedy; they frequent with great partiality the 
representation of popular German pieces of this description, 
and even produce the strangest and oddest imitations of them. 
Long accustomed to operas and ballets, as their favourite 
entertainments, wherein nothing is ever attempted beyond 
a beautiful air or an elegant movement, the public seems 



DECLINE OP DRAMATIC POETRY IN ITALY. 23 i 

altogether to liave lost all sense of dramatic connexion : they 
are perfectly satisfied with seeing the same evening two acts 
from different operas, or even the last act of an opera before 
the first. 

We believe, therefore, that we are not going too far if we 
affirm, that both dramatic poetry and the histrionic art are in 
a lamentable state of decline in Italy, that not even the first 
foundations of a true national theatre have yet been laid, and 
that there is no prospect of it, till the prevailing ideas on the 
subject shall have undergone a total change. 

Calsabigi attributes the cause of this state to the want of 
permanent companies of players, and of a capital. In this 
last reason there is certainly some foundation: in England, 
Spain, and France, a national system of dramatic art has been 
developed and established; in Italy and Germany, where 
there are only capitals of separate states, but no general me- 
tropolis, great difficulties are opposed to the improvement 
of the theatre. Calsabigi could not adduce the obstacles 
arising from a false theory, for he was himself under their 
influence. 



232 DRAMATIC LITERATURE OF THE FRENCH. 



LECTURE XVII. 



I 



Antiquities of the French Stage — Influence of Aristotle and the Imitation 
of the Ancients — Investigation of the Three Unities — ^Wliat is Unity 
of Action ? — Unity of Time — Was it obsei-ved by the Greeks ? — Unity 
. of Place as connected with it. 

We now proceed to the Dramatic Literature of France. "We 
have no intention of flwelling at length on the first beginnings 
of Tragedy in this country, and therefore leave to French 
critics the task of depreciating the antiquities of their own 
literature, which, with the mere view of adding to the glory 
of the later age of Richelieu and Louis XIV., they so zealously 
enter upon. Their language, it is true, was at this time first 
cultivated, from an indescribable waste of tastlessness and 
barbarity, while the harmonious diction of the Italian and 
Spanish poetry, which had long before spontaneously deve- 
loped itself in the most beautiful luxuriance, was rapidly 
degenerating. Hence we are not to be astonished if the 
French lay such great stress on negative excellences, and so 
carefully endeavour to avoid everything like impropriety, and 
that from dread of relapse into rudeness this has ever since 
been the general object of their critical labours. When La 
Harpe says of the tragedies of Corneille, that "their tone 
rises above flatness, only to fall into the opposite extreme of 
affectation," judging from the proofs which he adduces, we 
see no reason to difier from him. The publication recently of 
Legouve's Death of Henry the Fourth, has led to the reprinting 
of a contemporary piece on the same subject, which is not 
only written in a ludicrous style, but in the general plan and 
distribution of the subject, with its prologue spoken by Satan, 
and its chorus of pages, with its endless monologues and want 
of progress and action, betrays the infancy of the dramatic 
art; not a naive infancy, full of hope and promise, but one 
disfigured by the most pedantic bombast and absurdity. For 
a character of the earlier tragical attempts of the French in 



INFLUENCE OP ARISTOTLE. 233 

tbe last half of the sixteenth and the first thirty or forty 
years of the seventeenth century, we refer to Fontenelle, La 
Harpe, and the Melanges Litteraires of Suard and Andre. We 
shall confine ourselves to the characteristics of three of their 
most celebrated tragic poets, Corneille, Eacine, and Voltaire, 
who, it would seem, have given an immutable shape to their 
tragic stage. Our chief object, however, is an examination of 
the system of tragic art practically followed by these . poets, 
and by them, in part, but by the French critics universally, 
considered as alone entitled to any authority, and every 
deviation from it viewed as an ofi'ence against good taste. 
If only the system be in itself the right one, we shall be com- 
pelled to allow that its execution is masterly, perhaps not to 
be surpassed. But the great question here is : how far the 
French tragedy is in spirit and inward essence related to the 
Greek, and whether it deserves to be considered as an im- 
provement upon it 1 

Of the earlier attempts it is only necessary for us to observe, 
that the endeavour to imitate the ancients showed itself from 
the very earliest period in France. Moreover, they con- 
sidered it the surest method of succeeding in this endeavour 
to observe the outward regularity of form, of which their 
notion was derived from Aristotle, and especially from 
Seneca, rather than from any intimate acquaintance with the 
Greek models themselves. In the first tragedies that were 
represented, the Cleopatra and Dido of Jodelle, a prologue and 
chorus were introduced; Jean de la Peruse translated the 
Medea of Seneca; and Garnier's pieces are all taken from the 
Greek tragedies or from Seneca, but in the execution they 
bear a much closer resemblance to the latter. The writers of 
that day, moreover, modelled themselves diligently on the 
Soplionisbe of Trissino, in good confidence of its classic form. 
Whoever is acquainted with the procedure of true genius, how 
it is impelled by an almost unconscious and immediate con- 
templation of great and important truths, and in no wise by 
convictions obtained mediately, and by circuitous deductions, 
will be on that ground alone extremely susj)icious of all acti- 
vity in art which originates in an abstract theory. But Cor- 
neille did not, like an antiquary, execute his <lramas as so 
many learned school exercises, on the model of the ancients. 
Seneca, it is true, led him astray, but he knew and loved the 



i 



234 IMITATION OF THE ANCIENTS, 

Spanish theatre, and it had a great influence on his mind. 
Tlie first of his pieces, with which, according to general ad- 
njission, the classical asra of French tragedj?- commences, 
and which is certainly one of his best, the Cid, is well known 
to have been borrowed from the Spanish. It violates in a 
great degree the unity of place, if not also that of time, and 
it is animated throughout by the spirit of chivalrous love and 
honour. But the opinion of his contemporaries, that a tragedy 
must be framed in strict accordance with the rules of Aris- 
totle, was so universally predominant, that it bore down all 
op])osition. Almost at the close of his dramatic career, Cor- 
ueille began to entertain scruples of conscience, and in a 
separate treatise endeavoured to prove that, although in the 
composition of his pieces he had never even thought of Aris- 
totle, they were yet all accurately written according to his 
rules. This was no easy task, and he was obliged to have 
recourse to all manner of forced explanations. If he had 
been able to establish his case satisfactorily, it would but lead 
to the inference that the rules of Aristotle must be very loose 
and indeterminate, if works so dissimilar in spirit and form 
as the tragedies of the Greeks and those of Corneille are 
yet equally true to them. 

It is quite otherwise with Racine : of all the French poets 
he was, without doubt, the one who was best acquainted with 
the ancients; and not merely did he study them as a scholar, 
he felt them also as a poet. He found, however, the practice 
of the theatre already firmly established, and he did not, 
for the sake of approaching these models, undertake to de- 
viate from it. He contented himself, therefore, with appro- 
priating the separate beauties of the Greek poets; but, whe- 
ther from deference to the taste of his age, or from inclination, 
he remained faithful to the prevailing gallantry so alien to 
the spirit of Greek tragedy, and, for the most part, made it 
the foundation of the complication of his plots. 

Such, nearly, was the state of the French theatre before the 
appearance of Voltaire. His knowlelge of the Greeks was 
very limited, although he now and then spoke of them with 
enthusiasm, in order, on other occasions, to rank them below 
the more modern masters of his own nation, including himself; 
still, he always felt himself bound to preach up the grand 
severity and simplicity of the Greeks as essential to Tragedy. 



toltaire: his innovations on the stage. 235 

He censured the deviations of his predecessors therefrom as 
mistakes^, and insisted on purifying and at the same time 
enlarging the stage, as, in his opinion, from the constraint of 
court manners, it had been almost straitened to the dimensions 
of an antechamber. He at first spoke of Shakspeare's bursts 
of genius, and borrowed many things from this poet, at that 
time altogether unknown to his countrymen; he insisted, too, 
on greater depth in the delineation of passion — on a stronger 
theatrical effect; he called for a sc^ne more majestically orna- 
mented; and, lastly, he frequently endeavoured to give to his 
pieces a political or philosophical interest altogether foreign 
to poetry. His labours have unquestionably been of utility 
to the French stage, although in language and versification 
(which in the classification of dramatic excellences ought only 
to hold a secondary place, though in France they alone almost 
decide the fate of a piece), he is, by most critics, considered 
inferior to his predecessors, or at least to Racine. It is now 
the fashion to attack this idol of a bygone generation on every 
point, and with the most unrelenting and partial hostility. 
His innovations on the stage are therefore cried down as so 
many literary heresies, even by wa-tchmen of the critical Ziou, 
who seem to think that the age of Louis XIV. has left nothing 
for all succeeding time, to the end of the world, but a passive 
admiration of its perfections, without a presumptuous thought 
of making improvements of its own. For authority is avowed 
with so little disguise as the first principle of the French 
critics, that this expression of literary heresy is quite current 
with them. 

In so far as we have to raise a doubt of the unconditional 
authority of the rules followed by the old French tragic 
authors, of the pretended affinity between the spirit of their 
works and the spirit of the Greek tragedians, and of the in- 
dispensableness of many supposed proprieties, we find an ally 
in Voltaire. But in many other points he has, without 
examination, nay even unconsciously, adopted the maxims of 
his predecessors, and followed their practice. He is alike 
implicated with them in many opinions, which are perhaps 
founded more on national peculiarities than on human nature 
and the essence of tragic poetry in general. On this account 
we may include him in a common examination with them; 
for we are here concerned not with the execution of particular 



236 INTESTIGATION OF THE THREE UNITIES. 

parts, but with tlie general principles of tragic art whicli 
reveal themselves in the shape of the works. 

The consideration of the dramatic regularity for which 
these critics contend brings us back to the so-called Three 
Unities of Aristotle. We shall therefore examine the doctrine 
delivered by the Greek philosopber on this subject: how fa: 
the Greek tragedians knew or observed these rules; whethe: 
the French poets have in reality overcome the dilficulty oi 
observing them without the sacrifice of freedom and proba- 
bility, or merely dexterously avoided it; and finally, whether 
the merit of this observance is actually so great and essential 
as it has been deemed, and does not rather entail the sacrifice 
of still more essential beauties. 

There is, however, anotber aspect of French Tragedy 
from which it cannot appeal to the authority of the ancients : 
this is, the tying of poetry to a number of merely conven- 
tional proprieties. On this subject the French are far less 
clear than on that of the rules; for nations are not usually 
more capable of knowing and appreciating themselves than 
individuals are. It is, however, intimately connected with 
the spirit of French poetry in general, nay, rather of their 
whole literature and the very language itself All this, in 
France, has been formed under the guardianship of society, 
and, in its progressive development, has uniformly been 
guided and determined by it — the guardianship of a society 
which zealously imitated the tone of the capital, which 
again took its direction from the reigning modes of a brillianc 
court. If, as there is indeed no difficulty in proving, such be 
really the case, we may easily conceive why French literature^ 
of and since the age of Louis XIV., has been, and still is, so 
well received in the upper ranks of society and the fashionable 
world throughout Europe, whereas the body of the people, 
everywhere true to their own customs and manners, have 
never shown anything like a cordial liking for it. In this 
way, even in foreign countries, it again in some measure finds 
the J3lace of its birth. 

The far-famed Three Unities, which have given rise to a 
whole Iliad of critical wars, are the Unities of Action, Time, 
and Place. 

The validity of the first is universally allowed, but the 
difficulty is to agree about its true meaning ; and, I may add. 



THE TJNITIES OF ACTION, TIME, AND PLACE. 237 

that it is no easy matter to come to an understanding on the 
subject. 

The Unities of Time and of Place are considered by some 
quite a subordinate matter, while others lay the greatest 
stress upon them/ and affirm that out of the pale of them 
there is no safety for the dramatic poet. In France this zeal 
is not confined merely to the learned world, but seems to be 
shared by the whole nation in common. Every Frenchman 
who has sucked in his Boileau with his mother's milk, con- 
siders himself a born champion of the Dramatic Unities, much 
in the same way that the kings of England since Henry VIIT. 
are hereditary Defenders of the Faith. 

It is amusing enough to see Aristotle driven perforce to 
lend his name to these three Unities, whereas the only one of 
which he speaks with any degree of fulness is the first, the 
Unity of Action. With respect to the Unity of Time he 
merely throws out a vague hint ; while of the Unity of Place 
he says not a syllable. 

I do not, therefore, find myself in a polemical relation to 
Aristotle, for I by no means contest the Unity of Action pro- 
perly understood : I only claim a greater latitude with respect 
to place and time for many species of the drama, nay, hold it 
essential to them. In order, however, that we may view the 
matter in its true light, I must first say a few words on the 
Poetics of Aristotle, those few pages which have given rise to 
such voluminous commentaries. 

It is well established that this treatise is merely a frag- 
ment, for it does not even touch upon many important matters. 
Several scholars have even been of opinion, that it is not a 
fragment of the true original, but of an abridgment which 
some one had made for his own improvement. On one point 
all philological critics are unanimous : namely, that the text 
is very much corrupted, and they have endeavoured to 
restore it by conjectural emendations. Its great obscurity is 
either expressly complained of by commentators, or substan- 
tiated by the fact, that all in turn reject the interpretations 
of their predecessors, while they cannot approve their own to 
those who succeed them. 

Very different is it with the Rhetoric of Aristotle. It is 
undoubtedly genuine, perfect, and easily understood. But 
how does he there consider the oratorical art? As a sister of 



23 S ARISTOTLE ON UXITY OF ACTION. 

Logic : for as this produces conviction by its syllogism, so 

must Rhetoric in a kindred manner operate persuasion. This 
is about the same as to consider architecture simply as the 
art of building solidly and conveniently. This is, certainly, 
the first requisite, but a great deal more is still necessary 
before we can consider it as one of the fine arts. What we 
require of architecture is, that it should combine these essen- 
tial objects of an edifice with beauty of plan and harmony of 
proportion, and give to the whole a correspondent impression. 
Now when we see how Aristotle, without allowing for imagina- 
tion or feeling, has viewed oratory only on that side which is ac- 
cessible to the understanding, and is subservient to an external 
aim, can it surprise us if that he has still less fathomed the mys- 
tery of poetry, that art which is absolved from every other 
aim but its own unconditional one of creating the beautiful by 
free invention and clothing it in suitable language? — Already 
have I had the hardihood to maintain this heresy, and 
hitherto I have seen no reason for retracting my opinion. 
Lessing thought otherwise. But what if Lessing, with his 
acute analytical criticism, split exactly on the same rock? 
This species of criticism is completely victorious when it 
exposes the contradictions for the understanding in works 
composed exclusively Avith the understanding; but it could 
hardly rise to the idea of a work of art created by the true 
genius. 

The philosophical theory of the fine arts collectively was, 
as a distinct science, little cultivated among the ancients; of 
technical works on the several arts individually, in which the 
means of execution were alone considered, they had no lack. 
Were I to select a guide from among the ancient philosophers, 
it should undoubtedly be Plato, who acquired the idea of the 
beautiful not by dissection, which never can give it, but by 
intuitive inspiration, and in whose works the germs of a 
genuine Philosophy of Art, are every where scattered. 

Lotus now hear what Aristotle says on the Unity of Action. 

" We affirm that Tragedy is the imitation of a perfect and 
entire action which has a certahi magnitude : for there may be 
a whole without any magnitude whatever. Now a whole is 
what has a beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that 
which is not necessarily after some other thing, but that which 
from its nature has something after it, or arising out of it. 



ITS APPLICATION TO THE DRAMA. 239 

An end, on the other hand, is that which from its nature is 
after something else, either necessarily, or usually, but after 
which there is nothing. A middle, what is itself after some 
other thing, and after which also there is something. Hence 
poems which are properly composed must neither begin nor 
end accidentally, but according to the principles above laid 
down." 

Strictly speaking, it is a contradiction in terms to say that 
a whole, which has parts, can be without magnitude. But 
Aristotle goes on to state, in explanation, that by " mairni- 
tude," as a requisition of beauty, he means, a certain measure 
which is neither so small as to preclude us from distinguishing 
its parts, nor so extensive as to prevent us from taking the 
whole in at one view. This is, therefore, merely an external 
definition of the beautiful, derived from experience, and 
founded on the quality of our organs of sense and our powers 
of comprehension. However, his application of it to the 
drama is remarkable. " It must have an extension, but such 
as may easily be taken in by the memory. The determina- 
tion of the length according to the wants of the representation, 
does not come within the province of Art. With respect to 
the essence of the thing, the composition will be the more 
beautiful the more extensive it is without prejudice to its com- 
prehensibility." This assertion would be highly favourable 
for the compositions of Shakspeare and of other romantic 
poets, who have included in one picture a more extensive 
circle of life, characters, and events, than is to be found in the 
simple Greek tragedy, if only we could show that they have 
given it the necessary unity, and such a magnitude as can be 
clearly taken in at a view, and this we have no hesitation in 
affirming to be actually the case. 

In another place Aristotle requires the same unity of action 
from the epic as from the dramatic poet ; he repeats the pre- 
ceding definitions, and says that the poet must not resemble 
the historian, who relates contemporary events, although they 
have no bearing on one another. Here we have still a more 
express demand of that connexion of cause and eflTect between 
the represented events, which before, in his explanation of 
the parts of a whole, was at most implied. He admits, how- 
ever, that the epic poet may take in a much greater number 
of events connected with one main action, since the narrative 



240 WHAT IS UNITY OF ACTION? ^/^ 

form enables him to describe many tbings as going on at the 
same time; on tbe other hand, the dramatic poet cannot 
represent sever<al simultaneous actions, but only so much as is 
going on upon the stage, and the part wbich the persons who 
appear there take in one action. But what if a different con- 
struction of the scene, and a more skilful theatric perspective, 
should enable the dramatic poet, duly and without confusion, 
although in a more compressed space, to develope a fable not 
inferior in extent to the epic poem ? Where would be the 
objection, if the only obstacle were the supposed impossibility? 

This is nearly all that is to be found in the Poetics of Ari- 
stotle on Unity of Action. A short investigation will serve 
to show how very much these anatomical ideas, which have 
been stamped as rules, are below the essential requisites of 
poetry. 

Unity of Action is required. What is action ? Most 
critics pass over this point, as if it were self-evident In the 
higher, proper signification, action is an activity dependent 
on the will of man. Its unity will consist in the direction 
towards a single end ; and to its completeness belongs all that 
lies between the first determination and the execution of the 
deed. 

This idea of action is applicable to many tragedies of the 
ancients (for instance, Orestes' murder of his mother, CEdipus' 
determination to discover and punish the murderer of Laius), 
but by no means to all; still less does it apply to the greater 
part of modern tragedies, at least if the action is to be sought 
in the principal characters. What comes to pass through 
them, and proceeds with them, has frequently no more con- 
nexion with a voluntary determination, than a ship's striking 
on a rock in a storm. But further, in the term action, as 
understood by the ancients, we must include the resolution to 
bear the consequences of the deed with heroic magnanimity, 
and the execution of this determination will belong to its 
completion. The pious resolve of Antigone to perform the 
last duties to her unburied brother is soon executed and with- 
out difficulty; but genuineness, on which alone rests its claim 
to be a fit subject for a tragedy, is only subsequently proved 
when, without repentance, and without any symptoms of 
weakness, she suffers death as its penalt}'. And to take au 
example from quite a different sphere, is not Shakspeare's 



ANTIGONE ANDROMACHE. 243 

Julius CcGsar, as respects the action, constructed on the same 
principle ? Brutus is the hero of the piece ; the completion of 
his great resolve does not consist in the mere assassination 
of Caesar (an action ambiguous in itself, and of which the 
motives might have been ambition and jealousy), but in this, 
that he proves himself the pure champion of Roman liberty, 
by the calm sacrifice of his amiable life. 

Farther, there could be no complication of the plot without 
opposition, and this arises mostly out of the contradictory 
motives and views of the acting personages. If, therefore, we 
limit the notion of an action to the determination and the deed, 
then we shall, in most cases, have two or three actions in a 
single tragedy. Which now is the principal action 1 Every 
person thinks his own the most important, for every man is 
his own central point. Creon s determination to maintain his 
kingly authority, by punishing the burial of Polyuices with 
death, is equally fixed with Antigone's determination, equally 
important, and, as we see at the end, not less dangerous, as it 
draws after it the ruin of his whole house. It may be perhaps 
urged that the merely negative determination is to be consi- 
dered simply as the complement of the afiirmative. But what 
if each determines on something not exactly opposite, but 
altogether diflTerenf? In the Andromache of Racine, Orestes 
wishes to move Hermione to return his love; Hermioue is 
resolved to compel Pyrrhus to marry her, or she will be 
revenged on him ; Pyrrhus wishes to be rid of Hermione, and 
to be united to Andromache; Andromache is desirous of 
saving her son, and at the same time remaining true to the 
memory of her husband. Yet nobody ever questioned the 
unity of this piece, as the whole has a common connexion, 
and ends with one common catastrophe. But which of the 
actions of the four persons is the main action? In strength 
of passior. their endeavours are pretty nearly equal — in all 
the whole happiness of life is at stake; the action of An- 
dromache has, however, the advantage in moral dignity, 
and Racine was therefore perfectly right in naming the piece 
after her. 

' We see here a new condition in the notion of action, 
namely, the reference to the idea of moral liberty, by which 
alone man is considered as the original author of his own 
resolutions. For, considered within the province of expe- 

Q 



242 NEW DEFINITIOX IN THE CONCEPTION OF ACTION. 

rieuce, tlie resolution, as the beginning of action, is not a cause 
merely, but is also an effect of antecedent motives. It was in 
this reference to a higher idea, that we previously found the 
unity and wholeness of Tragedy in the sense of the ancients : 
namely, its absolute beginning is the assertion of Free-will, 
and the acknowledgment of Necessity its absolute end. But 
we consider ourselves justified in affirming that Aristotle was 
altogether a stranger to this view ; he nowhere speaks of the 
idea of Destiny as essential to Tragedy. In fact, we must not 
expect from him a strict idea of action as a resolation and 
deed. He says somewhere — " The extent of a tragedy is 
always sufiiciently great, if, by a series of probable or neces- 
sary consequences, a reverse from adversity to prosperity, or 
from happiness to misery, is brought about." It is evident, 
therefore, that he, like all the moderns, understood by action 
something merely that takes place. This action, according to 
him, must have beginning, middle, and end, and consequently 
consist of a plurality of connected events. But where are the 
limits of this plurality? Is not the concatenation of causes 
and effects, backwards and forwards, without end? and may 
we then, with equal propriety, begin and break off wherever 
we please? In this province, can there be either beginning 
or end, corresponding to Aristotle's very accurate definition of 
these notions? Completeness would therefore be altogether 
impossible. If, however, for the unity of a plurality of events 
nothing more is requisite than casual connexion, then this rule 
is indefinite in the extreme, and the unity admits of being 
narrowed or enlarged at pleasure. For every series of inci- 
dents or actions, which are occasioned by each other, how- 
ever much it be prolonged, may always be comprehended 
under a single point of view, and denoted by a single name. 
When Calderon in a single drama describes the conversion of 
Peru to Christianity, from its very beginning (that is, from 
the discovery of the country) down to its completion, and 
when nothing actually occurs in the piece which had not some 
influence on that event, does he not give us as much Unity in 
the above sense as the simplest Greek tragedy, which, how- 
ever, the champions of Aristotle's rules will by no means 
allow? 

Corneille was well aware of the difiiculty of a proper defi- 
nition of unity, as applicable to an inevitable plurality of 



CONNEXION BETWEEN CAUSE AND EFFECT. 243 

subordinate actions; and in this way did he endeavour to get 
rid of it. " I assume," says he, " that in Comedy, Unity of 
Action consists in Unity of the Intrigue ; that is, of the 
obstacles raised to the designs of the principal persons ; and 
in Tragedy, in the unity of the danger, whether the hero sinks 
under, or extricates himself from it. By this, however, I do 
not mean to assert that several dangers in Tragedy, and 
several intrigues or obstacles in Comedy, may not be allow- 
able, provided only that the personage falls necessarily from 
one into the other ; for then the escape from the first danger 
does not make the action complete, for it draws a second 
after it, as also the clearing up of one intrigue does not place 
the acting persons at their ease, because it involves them in 
another." 

In the first place the difference here assumed between tragic 
and comic Unity is altogether unessential. For the manner 
of putting the play together is not influenced by the circum- 
stance, that the incidents in Tragedy are more seriou-s, as 
affecting person and life ; the embarrassment of the characters 
in Comedy when they cannot accomplish their design and 
intrigues, may equally be termed a danger. Corneille, like 
most others, refers all to the idea of connexion between cause 
and effect. No doubt when the principal persons, either by 
marriage or death, are set at rest, the drama comes to a close; 
but if nothing more is necessary to its Unity than the uninter- 
rupted progress of an opposition, which serves to keep up the 
dramatic movement, simplicity will then come but poorly off: 
for, without violating this rule of Unity, we may go on to an 
almost endless accumulation of events, as in the Thousand 
and One Nights, where the thread of the story is never once 
broken. 

De la Motte, a French author, who wrote against the Unities 
in general, would substitute for Unity of action, the Unity of 
interest. If the term be not confined to the interest in the 
destinies of some single personage, but is taken to mean in 
general the direction which the mind takes at the sight of an 
event, this explanation, so understood, seems most satisfactory 
and very near the truth. 

But we should derive but little advantage from groping 
about empirically with the commentators on Aristotle. The 
idea of One and Whole is in no way whatever derived from 

q2 



244 UNITY IN TRAGEDY. 



eousV 



experience, but arises out of the primary and spontaneous 
activity of tte human mind. To account for the manner in 
which we in general arrive at this idea, and come to think of 
one and a whole, would require nothing short of a sj^stem of 
metaphysics. 

The external sense perceives in objects only an indefinite 
plurality of distinguishable parts; the judgment, by which we 
comprehend these into an entire and perfect unity, is in all 
cases founded on a reference to a higher sphere of ideas. 
Thus, for example, the mechanical unity of a watch consists 
in its aim of measuring time; this aim, however, exists only 
for the understanding, and is neither visible to the eye, nor 
palpable to the touch: the organic unity of a plant or an 
animal consists in the idea of life ; but the inward intuition of 
life, which, in itself uncorporeal, nevertheless manifests itself 
through the medium of the corporeal world, is brought by us 
to the observation of the individual liviug object, otherwise 
we could not obtain it from that object. 

The separate parts of a work of art, and (to return to the 
question before us,) the separate parts, consequently, of a tra- 
gedy, must not be taken in by the eye and ear alone, but also 
comprehended by the understanding. Collectively, however, 
they are all subservient to one common aim, namely, to pro- 
duce a joint impression on the mind. Here, therefore, as iu 
the above examples, the Unity lies in a higher sphere, in the 
feeling or in the reference to ideas. This is all one; for the 
feeling, so far as it is not merely sensual and passive, is our 
sense, our organ for the Infinite, which forms itself into ideas 
for us. 

Far, therefore, from rejecting the law of a perfect Unity in 
Tragedy as unnecessary, I require a deeper, more intrinsic, 
and more mysterious unity than that with which most critics 
are satisfied. This Unity I find in the tragical compositions 
of Shakspeare, in as great perfection as in those of JEschylus 
and Sophocles; while, on the contrary, I do not find it in 
many of those tragedies which nevertheless are lauded as 
correct by the critics of the dissecting school. 

Logical coherence, the causal connexion, I hold to be equally 
essential to Tragedy and every serious drama, because all 
the mental powers act and react upon each other, and if 
the Understanding be compelled to take a leap, Imagina- 



UNITY OF TIME — ARISTOTLE. 245 

tion and Feeling do not follow the composition with equal 
alacrity. But unfortunately the champions of what is called 
regularity have applied this rule with a degree of petty 
subtlety, which can have no other ejBfect than that of cramp- 
ing the poet, and rendering true excellence impossible. 

We must not suppose that the order of sequences in a 
tragedy resembles a slender thread, of which v/e are every 
moment in anxious dread lest it should snap. This simile is 
by no means applicable, for it is admitted that a plurality of 
subordinate actions and interests is inevitable; but rather 
let us suppose it a mighty stream, which in its impetu- 
ous course overcomes many obstructions, and loses itself at 
last in the repose of the ocean. It springs perhaps from 
different sources, and certainly receives into itself other rivers, 
which hasten towards it from opposite regions. Why should 
not the poet be allowed to carry on several, and, for a while, 
independent streams of human passions and endeavours, down 
to the moment of their raging junction, if only he can place 
the spectator on an eminence from whence he may overlook 
the whole of their course? And if this great and swollep 
body of waters again divide into several branches, and pour 
itself into the sea by several mouths, is it not still one and the 
same stream? 

So much for the Unity of Action. With respect to the 
Unity of Time, we find in Aristotle no more than the follow- 
ing passage : " Moreover, the Epos is distinguished from 
Tragedy by its length : for the latter seeks as far as possible 
to circumscribe itself within one revolution of the sun, or to 
exceed it but little; the Epos is unlimited in point of 
time, and in that respect differs from Tragedy. At first, 
however, the case was in this respect alike in tragedies and 
epic poems." 

We may in the first place observe that Aristotle is not 
giving a precept here, but only making historical mention of 
a peculiarity which he observed in the Grecian examples 
before him. But what if the Greek tragedians had particular 
reasons for circumscribing themselves within this extent of 
time, which with the constitution of our theatres no longer 
exist? We shall immediately see that this was really the 
case. 

Corneille with great reason finds the rule extremely incon- 



246 ENTERTAINMENT — WEARISOMENESS. 

Tenient; lie therefore prefers the more lenient iutcrpretation, 
and says^ " he would not scruple to extend the duration of 
the action even to thirty hours." Others, however, most rigor- 
ously insist on the principle that the action should not 
occupy a longer period than that of its representation, that is 
to say, from two to three hours. — The dramatic poet must, 
according to them, be punctual to his hour. In the main, the 
latter plead a sounder cause than the more lenient critics. 
For the only ground of the rule is the observation of a proba- 
bility which they suppose to be necessary for illusion, namely, 
that the actual time and that of the representation should be 
the same. If once a discrepancy be allowed, such as the 
difference between two hours and thirty, we may upon the 
same principle go much farther. This idea of illusion has 
occasioned great errors in the theory of art. By this terai 
there has often been understood the unwittingly erroneous 
belief that the represented action is reality. In that case the 
terrors of Tragedy would be a true torture to us, they would 
be like an Alpine load on the fancy. No, the theatrical as 
well as every other poetical illusion, is a waking dream, to 
which we voluntarily surrender ourselves. To produce it, the 
poet and actors must powerfully agitate the mind, and the 
probabilities of calculation do not in the least contribute 
towards it. This demand of literal deception, pushed to the 
extreme, would make all poetic form impossible; for we know 
well that the mythological and historical persons did not 
speak our language, that impassioned grief does not express 
itself in verse, &c. What an unpoetical spectator were he 
who, instead of following the incidents with his sympathy, 
should, like a gaoler, with watch or hour-glass in hand, count 
out to the heroes of the tragedy, the minutes which they still 
have to live and act ! Is our soul then a piece of clock-work, 
that tells the hours and minutes with infallible accuracy ? 
Has it not rather very different measures of time for agreeable 
occupation and for wearisomeness ? In the one case, under 
an easy and varied activity, the hours fly apace ; in the other, 
while we feel all our mental powers clogged and impeded, 
they are stretched out to an immeasurable length. Thus it is 
during the present, but in memory quite the reverse: the 
interval of dull and empty uniformity vanishes in a moment ; 
while that which marks an abundance of varied impressions 



THE ANCIENTS— APPARENT CONTINUITY OP TIME. 247 

grows and widens in the same proportion. Our body is sub- 
jected to external astronomical time, because tlie organical 
operations are regulated by it ; but our mind has its own ideal 
time; which is no other but the consciousness of the progres- 
sive development of our beings. In this measure of time the 
intervals of an indifferent inactivity pass for nothing, and 
two important moments, though they lie years apart, link 
themselves immediately to each other. Thus, when we have 
been intensely engaged with any matter before we fell asleep, 
we often resume the very same train of thought the instant 
we awake and the intervening dreams vanish into their 
unsubstantial obscurity. It is the same with dramatic exhi- 
bition : our imagination overleaps with ease the times which 
are presupposed and intimated, but which are omitted because 
nothing important takes place in them ; it dwells solely on the 
decisive moments placed before it, by the compression of 
which the poet gives wings to the lazy course of days and 
hours. 

But, it will be objected, the ancient tragedians at least ob- 
served the Unity of Time. This expression is by no means 
precise; it should at least be the identity of the imaginary 
with the material time. But even then it does not apply to 
the ancients : what they observe is nothing but the seeming 
continuity of time. It is of importance to attend to this dis- 
tinction — the seeming ; for they unquestionably allow much 
more to take place during the choral songs than could really 
happen within their actual duration. Thus the Agamemnon 
of -^schylus comprises the whole interval, from the destruc- 
tion of Troy to his arrival in Mycense, which, it is plain, 
must have consisted of a very considerable number of days ; 
in the IVachiniw of Sophocles, during the course of the play, 
the voyage from Thessaly to Euboea is thrice performed ; and 
again, in the Supplices of Euripides, during a single choral 
ode, the entire march of an army from Athens to Thebes is sup- 
posed to take place, a battle to be fought, and the General to 
return victorious. So far were the Greeks from this sort of 
minute and painful calculations ! They had, however, a par- 
ticular reason for observing the seeming continuity of time in 
the constant presence of the Chorus. When the Chorus leaves 
the stage, the continuous progress is interrupted ; of this we 
have a striking instance in QiQEumenides of -^schylus, where 



248 DIVISIONS OF A DIIAMA HORACE — WIELAND. 

the whole interval is omitted wLicli was necessary to allow 
Orestes to proceed from Delphi to Athens. Moreover, be- 
tween the three pieces of a trilogy, which were acted consecu- 
tively, and were intended to constitute a whole, there were 
gaps of time as considerable as those between the three acts 
of many a Spanish drama. 

The moderns have, in the division of their plays into acts, 
which, properly speaking, were unknown to Greek Tragedy, 
a convenient means of extending the period of representation 
without any ill effect. For the poet may fairly reckon so far 
on the spectator's imagination as to presume that during the 
entire suspension of the representation, he will readily con- 
ceive a much longer interval to have elapsed than that which 
is measured by the rhythmical time of the music between the 
acts ; otherwise to make it appear the more natural to him, it 
might be as well to invite him to come and see the next act 
to-morrow. The division into acts had its origin with tho 
New Comedy, in consequence of the exclusion of the chorus. 
Horace prescribes the condition of a regular play, that it 
should have neither more nor less than five acts. The rule is so 
unessential, that Wieland thought Horace was here laughing 
at the young Pisos in urging a precept like this with such 
solemnity of tone as if it were really of importance. If in 
the ancient Tragedy we may mark it as the conclusion of an 
act wherever the stage remains empty, and the chorus is left 
alone to proceed with its dance and ode, we shall often have 
fewer than five acts, but often also more than five. As an 
observation that in a representation, between two or three 
hours long, such a number of rests are necessary for the atten- 
tion, it may be allowed to pass. But, considered in any 
other light, I should like to hear a reason for it, grounded on 
the nature of Dramatic Poetry, why a drama must have so 
many and only so many divisions. But the world is governed 
by prescription and tradition : a smaller number of acts has 
been tolerated; to transgress the consecrated number of five^ 
is still considered a dangerous and atrocious profanation. 

As a general rule, the division into acts seems to me erro- 
neous, when, as is so often the case in modern plays, nothing 
takes place in the intervals between them, and when the per- 

* Three unities, five acts : why not seven persons ? These rules seem to 
proceed according to odd numbers. 



UNITY OF PLACE. 249 

sons at the beginning of tlie new act are exhibited in exactly 
the same situation as at the close of the foregoing one. And 
yet this stand -still has given much less offence than the 
assumption of a considerable interval, or of incidents omitted 
in the representation, because the former is merely a negative 
error. 

The romantic poets take the liberty CA'en of changing the 
scene during the course of an act. As the stage is always 
previously left empty, these also are such interruptions of the 
continuity, as would warrant them in the assumption of as 
many intervals. If we stumble at this, but admit the pro- 
priety of a division into acts, we have only to consider these 
changes of scene in the light of a greater number of short acts. 
But then, it will perhaps be objected, this is but justifying one 
error by another, the violation of the Unity of Time by the 
violation of the Unity of Place : we shall, therefore, proceed 
to examine more at length how far the last-mentioned rule is 
indispensable. 

In vain, as we have already said, shall we look to Aristotle 
for any opinion on this subject. It is asserted that the rule 
was observed by the ancients. Not always, only generally. 
Of seven plays by ^schylus, and the same number by Sopho- 
cles, there are two, the Eumenides and the Ajax, in which the 
scene is changed. That they generally retain the same scene 
follows naturally from the constant presence of the chorus, 
which must be got rid of by some suitable device before there 
can be a change of place. And then, again, it must not be 
forgotten, that their scene represented a much wider extent 
than in most cases ours does ; not a mere room, but the open 
space before several buildings : and the disclosing the interior 
of a house by means of the encyclema, may be considered in 
the same light as the drawing a back curtain on our stage. 

The objection to the change of scene is founded on the 
same erroneous idea of illusion which we have already dis- 
cussed. To transfer the action to another place would, it is 
urged, dispel the illusion. But now if we are in reality to 
consider the imaginary for the actual place, then must stage 
decoration and scenery be altogether different from what 
it now is*. Johnson, a critic who, in general, is an advo- 

* It is calculated merely for a single point of view : seen from every 
other point, the broken lines betray the imperfection of the imitation. 



250 VOLTAIRE : nis superficial conclusions. 

cate for tte strict rules^, very justly observes, that if our ima- 
gination once goes the length of transporting us eighteen 
hundred years back to Alexandria, in order to figure to our- 
selves the story of Antony and Cleopatra as actually taking 
place before us, the next step, of transporting ourselves from 
Alexandria to Rome, is easier. The capability of our mind 
to fly in thought, with the rapidity of lightning, through the 
immensity of time and space, is well known and acknowledged 
in common life ; and shall poetry, whose very purpose it is to 
add all manner of wings to our mind, and which has at com- 
mand all the magic of genuine illusion, that is, of a lively and 
enrapturing fiction, be alone compelled to renounce this uni- 
versal prerogative ? 

Voltaire wishes to derive the Unity of Place and Time from 
the Unity of Action, but his reasoning is shallow in the ex- 
treme. "^ For the same reason," says he, " the Unity of Place 
is essential, because no one action can go on in several places 
at once." But still, as we have already seen, several persons 
necessarily take part in the one principal action, since it con- 
sists of a plurality of subordinate actions, and what should 
hinder these from proceeding in different places at the same 
time ? Is not the same war frequently carried on simul- 
taneously in Europe and India; and must not the historian 
recount alike in his narrative the events which take place on 
both these scenes '? 

'- The Unity of Time," he adds, " is naturally connected 
with the two first. If the poet represents a conspiracy, and 
extends the action to fourteen days, he must account to me 
for all that takes place in these fourteen days." Yes, for all 
that belongs to the matter in hand ; all the rest, being extra- 
neous to it, he passes over in silence, as every good story- 
teller would, and no person ever thinks of the omission. 
" If, therefore, he places before me the events of fourteen 
days, this gives at least fourteen different actions, however 
small they may be." No doubt, if the poet were so unskilful 
as to wind off the fourteen days one after another with visible 
precision; if day and night are just so often to come and go. 

Even as to the arcMtectural import, so little attention do the audience in 
general pay to these niceties, that they are not even shocked when the 
actors enter and disappear through a wall without a door, between the side 
scenes. 



SHAKSPEARE : HIS DEFINITION OF TIME AND PLACE. 251 

aud tlie characters to go to bed and get up again just so many 
times. But the clever poet thrusts into the background all 
the intervals which are connected with no perceptible progress 
in the action, and in his picture annihilates all the pauses of 
absolute stand-still, and contrives, though with a rapid touch, 
to convey an accurate idea of the period supposed to have 
elapsed. But why is the privilege of adopting a much wider 
space between the two extremes of the piece than the material 
time of the representation important to the dramatist, and 
even indispensable to him in many subjects ? The example 
of a conspiracy given by Voltaire comes in here very oppor- 
tunely. 

A conspiracy plotted and executed in two hours is, in the 
first place, an incredible thing. Moreover, with reference to 
the characters of the personages of the piece, such a plot is 
very different from one in which the conceived purpose, how- 
ever dangerous, is silently persevered in by aU the parties for 
a considerable time. Though the poet does not admit this 
lapse of time into his exhibition immediately, in the midst of 
the characters, as in a mirror, he giA''es us as it were a perspec- 
tive view of it. In this sort of perspective Shakspeare is the 
greatest master I know: a single word frequently opens to 
view an almost interminable vista of antecedent states of 
mind. Confined within the narrow limits of time, the poet is 
in many subjects obliged to mutilate the action, by beginning 
close to the last decisive stroke, or else he is under the neces- 
sity of unsuitably hurrying on its progress : on either suppo- 
sition he must reduce within petty dimensions the grand 
picture of a strong purpose, which is no momentary ebullition, 
but a firm resolve undauntedly maintained in the midst 
of all external vicissitudes, till the time is ripe for its exe- 
cution. It is no longer what Shakspeare has so often painted, 
and what he has described in the following lines : — 

Between the acting of a dreadful thing, 
And the first motion, all the interim is 
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream : 
The genius, and the mortal instruments, 
Are then in council ; and the state of man, 
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then 
The nature of an insurrection. 



252 SCULPTURE — PAINTING. 

But why are tlie Greek and romantic poets so different in 
their practice with respect to jjlace and time ? The spirit of 
our criticism will not alloAv us to follow the practice of many 
critics^ who so summarily pronounce the latter to be bar- 
barians. On the contrary, we conceive that they lived in 
very cultivated times, and were themselves highly cultivated 
men. As to the ancients, besides the structure of their stage, 
which, as we have already said, led naturally to the seeming 
continuity of time and to the absence of change of scene, their 
observance of this practice was also favoured by the nature 
of the materials on which the Grecian dramatist had to work. 
These materials were mythology, and, consequently, a fiction, 
which, under the handling of preceding poets, had collected 
into continuous and perspicuous masses, what in reality was 
detached and scattered about in various ways. Moreover, 
the heroic age which they painted was at once extremely 
simple in its manners, and marvellous in its incidents ; and 
hence everything of itself went straight to the mark of a 
tragic resolution. 

But the principal cause of the difference lies in the plastic 
spirit of the antique, and the picturesque spirit of the romantic 
poetry. Sculpture directs our attention exclusively to the 
group which it sets before us, it divests it as far as possible 
from all external accompaniments, and where they cannot 
be dispensed with, it indicates them as slightly as possible. 
Painting, on the other hand, delights in exhibiting, along 
with the principal figures, all the details of the surrounding 
locality and all secondary circumstances, and to open a pros- 
pect into a boundless distance in the background; and light and 
shade with perspective are its peculiar charms. Hence the 
Dramatic, and especially the Tragic Art, of the ancients, anni- 
hilates in some measure the external circumstances of space 
and time; while, by their changes, the romantic drama adorns 
its more varied pictures. Or, to express myself in other 
terms, the principle of the antique poetry is ideal; that of 
the romantic is mystical: the former subjects space and time 
to the internal free-agency of the mind; the latter honours 
these incomprehensible essences as supernatural powers, in 
which there is somewhat of indwelling divinity. 



FRENCH TRAGEDY ITS AFFINITY TO COMEDY. 2.53 



LECTURE XVIII. 

Mischief resulting to the French Stage from too narrow Interpretation of 
the Rules of Unity — Influence of these rules on French Tragedy — 
Manner of treating Mythological and Historical Materials — Idea of 
Tragical Dignity — Observation of Conventional Rules — False System of 
Expositions. 

I COME now to the influence which the above rules of 
Unity, strictly interpreted and received as inviolable, have, 
with other conventional rules, exercised on the shape of 
French tragedy. 

With the stage of a wholly different structure, with mate- 
rials for the most part dissimilar, and handled in an opposite 
spirit, they were still desirous of retaining the rules of the 
ancient Tragedy, so far as they are to be learnt from Aris- 
totle. 

They prescribed the same simplicity of action* as the Grecian 
Tragedy observed, and yet rejected the lyrical part, which is 
a protracted development of the present moment, and conse- 
quently a stand-still of the action. This part could not, it is 
true, be retained, since we no longer possess the ancient 
music, which was subservient to the poetry, instead of over- 
bearing it as ours does. If we deduct from the Greek 
Tragedies the choral odes, and the lyrical pieces which are 
occasionally put into the mouths of individuals, they will be 
found nearly one -half shorter than an ordinary French tragedy. 
Voltaire, in his prefaces, frequently complains of the great 
i difficulty in procuring materials for five long acts. How now 
I have the gaps arising from the omission of the lyrical parts 
been filled up? By intrigue. While with the Greeks the 
action, measured by a few great moments, rolls on uninterrupt- 
edly to its issue, the French have introduced many secondary 
characters almost exclusively with the view that their oppo- 
site purposes may give rise to a multitude of impeding" 
incidents, to keep up our attention, or rather our curiosity, to 
the close. There was now an end therefore of everything 
like simplicity; still they flattered themselves that they had. 



254 MACBETH : RAPID PROGRESS OF THAT DRAMA. 

by means of an artificial colierence, preseryed at least a unity 
for the understanding. 

Intrigue is not, in itself, a Tragical motive ; to Comedy, it 
is essential, as we have already shown. Comedy, even at its 
close, must often be satisfied with mere suppositions for 
the understanding; but this is by no means the poetic side 
of this demi-prosaic species of the Drama. Although the 
French Tragedy endeavours in the details of execution to rise 
by earnestness, dignity, and pathos, as high as possible above 
Comedy, in its general structure and composition, it still bears, 
in my opinion, but too close an affinity to it. In many 
French tragedies I find indeed a Unity for the Understanding, 
but the Feeling is left unsatisfied. Out of a complication of 
painful and violent situations we do, it is true, arrive at last, 
happily or unhappily, at a state of repose ; but in the repre- 
sented course of affairs there is no secret and mysterious 
revelation of a higher order of things; there is no allusion to 
any consolatory thoughts of heaven, whether in the dignity of 
human nature successfully maintained in its conflicts with 
fate, or in the guidance of an over-ruling providence. To 
such a tranquillizing feeling the so-called poetical justice is 
partly unnecessary, and partly also, so very questionably and 
obliquely is it usually administered, very insufficient. But 
even poetical justice (which I cannot help considering as 
a made-up example of a doctrine false in itself, and one, 
moreover, which by no means tends to the excitation of truly 
moral feelings) has not unfrequently been altogether neglected 
by the French tragedians. 

The use of intrigue is certainly well calculated to effect the 
all-desired short duration of an important action. For the 
intriguer is ever expeditious, and loses no time in attaining 
to his object. But the mighty course of human destinies pro- 
ceeds, like the change of seasons, with measured pace : great 
designs ripen slowly; stealthily and hesitatingly the dark 
suggestions of deadly malice quit the abysses of the mind for 
the light of day; and, as Horace, with equal truth and beauty 
observes, "the flying criminal is only limpingly followed by 
penal retribution*." Let only the attempt be made, for in- 

* Raro antecedentem scelestum 
Deseruit pede paena claudo. 

Trans. 



ITS TRAGICAL EXHIBITION — THE COMET S COURSE. 255 

stance, to bring within the narrow frame of the Unity of Time 
Shakspeare's gigantic picture of Macbeth's murder of Duncan, 
his tyrannical usurpation and jSnalfall; let as many as may be 
of the events which the great dramatist successively exhibits 
before us in such dread array be placed anterior to the opening 
of the piece, and made the subject of an after recital, 
and it will be seen how thereby the story loses all its sub- 
lime significance. This drama does, it is true, embrace a 
considerable period of time : but does its rapid progress leave 
us leisure to calculate this ? We see, as it were, the Fates 
weaving their dark web on the whistling loom of time ; and 
we are drawn irresistibly on by the storm and whirlwind of 
events, which hurries on the hero to the first atrocious deed, 
and from it to innumerable crimes to secure its fruits with 
fluctuating fortunes and perils, to his final fall on the field of 
battle. Such a tragic exhibition resembles a comet's course, 
which, hardly visible at first, and revealing itself only to the 
astronomic eye, appears at a nebulous distance in the heavens, 
but soon soars with unheard-of and accelerating rapidity 
towards the central point of our system, scattering dismay 
among the nations of the earth, till, in a moment, when least 
expected, with its portentous tail it overspreads the half of 
the firmament with resplendent flame. 

For the sake of the prescribed Unity of Time the French 
poets must fain renounce all those artistic efiects which pro- 
ceed from the gradually accelerated growth of any object in 
the mind, or in the external world, through the march of 
time, while of all that in a drama is calculated to fascinate 
the eye they were through their wretched arrangement of 
stage-scenery deprived in a great measure by the Unity of 
Place. AccidentpJ circumstances might in truth enforce a 
closer observance of this rule, or even render it indispen- 
sable. From a remark of Corneille's* we are led to con- 
jecture that stage-machinery in France was in his time 
extremely clumsy and imperfect. It was moreover the general 
custom for a number of distinguished spectators to have seats 
on both sides of the stage itself, which hardly left a breadth 

* In his Premier Discours sur la Poesie Dramatique he says : " Une 
chanson a quelquefois bonne grace ; et dans les pieces de machines cet 
omement est redevenu necessaire ponr remplir les oreilles du spectateur, 
jiendant que les machines descendent.'* 



256 UNITY OP TIME — THE FRENCH POETS. 

of ten paces for the free movements of the actors. Regnard, 
in Le Distrait, gives us an amusing description of the noise 
and disorder these fashionable petit-maitres in his day kept 
up in this privileged place, how chattering and laughing 
behind the backs of the actors they disturbed the spectators, 
and drew away attention from the play to themselves as the 
prominent objects of the stage. This evil practice continued 
even down to Voltaire's time, who has the merit of having 
by his zealous opposition to it obtained at last its complete 
abolition, on the appearance of his SemiraTnis. How could 
they have ventured to make a change of scene in presence of 
such an unpoetical chorus as this, totally unconnected with 
the piece, and yet thrust into the very middle of the repre- 
sentation ? In the Cid, the scene of the action manifestly 
changes several times in the course of the same act, and yet 
in the representation the material scene was never changed. 
In the English and Spanish plays of the same date the case 
was generally the same ; certain signs, however, were agreed 
on which served to denote the change of place, and the docile 
imagination of the spectators followed the poet whithersoever 
he chose. But in France, the young men of quality who sat 
on the stage lay in wait to discover something to laugh at; 
and as all theatrical effect requires a certain distance, and 
when viewed too closely appears ludicrous, all attempt at 
it was, in such a state of things, necessarily abandoned, and 
the poet confined himself principally to the dialogue between 
a few characters, the stage being subjected to all the formali- 
ties of an antechamber. 

And in truth, for the most part, the scene did actually 
represent an antechamber, or at least a hall in the interior 
of a palace. As the action of the Greek tragedies is always 
carried on in open places surrounded by the abode or symbols 
of majesty, so the French poets have modified their mytho- 
logical materials, from a consideration of the scene, to the 
manners of modern courts. In a princely palace no strong 
emotion, no breach of social etiquette is allowable; and as 
in a tragedy affairs cannot always proceed with pure courtesy, 
every bolder deed, therefore, every act of violence, every 
thing startling and calculated strongly to impress the senses, 
is transacted behind the scenes, and related merely by con- 
fidants or other messengers. And yet as Horace, centuries 



THE SCENE^ AN ANTECHAMBER HORACE. 257 

ago remarked^ whatever is communicated to the ear excites 
the mind far more feebly than what is exhibited to the 
trusty eye, and the spectator informs himself of. What he 
recommends to be withdrawn from observation is only the 
incredible and the revoltingly cruel. The dramatic eflfect of 
the visible may, it is true, be liable to great abuse ; and it is 
possible for a theatre to degenerate into a noisy arena of 
mere bodily events, to which words and gestures may be but 
superfluous appendages. But surely the opposite extreme of 
allowing to the eye no conviction of its own, and always 
referring to something absent, is deserving of equal reproba- 
tion. In many French tragedies the spectator might well 
entertain a feeling that great actions were actually taking 
place, but that he had chosen a bad place to be witness of 
them. It is certain that the obvious impression of a drama 
is greatly impaired when the effects, which the spectators 
behold, proceed from invisible and distant causes. The con- 
verse procedure of this is preferable, — to exhibit the cause 
itself, and to allow the effect to be simply recounted. Vol- 
taire was aware of the injury which theatrical effect sustained 
from the established practice of the tragic stage in France; 
he frequently insisted on the necessity of richer scenical 
decorations ; and he himself in his pieces, and others after his 
example, have ventured to represent many things to the eye, 
which before would have been considered as unsuitable, not 
to say, ridiculous. But notwithstanding this attempt, and 
the still earlier one of Racine in his Athalie, the eye is now 
more out of favour than ever with the fashionable critics. 
Wherever any thing is allowed to be seen, or an action is 
performed bodily before them, they scent a melodrama; 
and the idea that Tragedy, if its purity, or rather its bald 
insipidity, was not watchfully guarded, would be gradually 
amalgamated with this species of play, (of which a word 
hereafter,) haunts them as a horrible phantom. 

Voltaire himself has indulged in various infractions of the 
Unity of Time ; nevertheless he has not dared directly to 
attack the rule itself as unessential. He did but wish to see 
a greater latitude given to its interpretation. It would, he 
thought, be sufficient if the action took place within the cir- 
cuit of a palace or even of a town, though in a different part 
of them. In order however, to avoid a change of scene, 

R 



258 VOLTAIRE : INFRACTIONS OF THE UNITY OF TIME. 

he would have it so contriyed as at once to comprise tlie 
several localities. Here he betrays very confused ideas, both 
of architecture and perspective. He refers to Palladio's 
theatre at Vicenza, which he could hardly have ever seen : 
for his account of this theatre, which, as we have already 
observed, is itself a misconception of the structure of the 
ancient stage, appears to be altoc^ether founded on descriptions 
which clearly he did not understand. In the Semiramis, 
the play in which he first attempted to carry into practice his 
principles on this subject, he has fallen into a singular error. 
Instead of allowing the persons to proceed to various places, 
he has actually brought the places to the persons. The scene 
in the third act is a cabinet; this cabinet, to use Voltaire's 
own words, gives way (without — let it be remembered — the 
queen leaving it), to a grand saloon magnificently furnished. 
The Mausoleum of Ninus too, which stood at first in an 
open place before the palace, and opposite to the temple of 
the Magi, has also found means to steal to the side of the 
throne in the centre of this haU, After yielding his spirit to 
the light of day, to the terror of many beholders, and again 
receiving it back, it repairs in the following act to its old place, 
where it probably had left its obelisks behind. In the fifth act 
we see that the tomb is extremely spacious, and provided with 
subterraneous passages. What a noise would the French 
critics make were a foreigner to commit such ridiculous blun- 
ders. In Brutus we have another example of this running about 
of the scene with the persons. Before the opening of the first 
act we have a long and particular description of the scenic 
arrangement : the Senate is assembled between the Capitoline 
temple and the house of the Consuls, in the open air. After- 
wards, on the rising of the assembly, Arons and Albin alone 
remain behind, and of them it is now said : qui sont supposes 
etre entres de la salle d'audience dans un autre appartement 
de la maison de Brutus. What is the poet's meaning here ? 
Is the scene changed without being empty, or does he trust 
so far to the imagination of his spectators, as to require them, 
against the evidence of their senses, to take for a chamber a 
scene which is ornamented in quite a different style 1 And 
how does that which in the first description is a public place 
become afterwards a hall of audience ? In this scenic arrange- 
ment there must be either legerdemain, or a bad memory. 



TIME AND UNITY OF TLACE. 259 

With respect to the Unity of Place^ we may in general ob- 
serve that it is often very unsatisfactorily observed, even in 
comedy, by the French poets, as well as by all who follow the 
same system of rules. The scene is not, it is true, changed, 
but things which do not usually happen in the same place are 
made to follow each other. What can be more improbable 
than that people should confide their secrets to one another in a 
place where they know their enemies are close at hand ? or that 
plots against a sovereign should be hatched in his own ante- 
chamber? Great importance is attached to the principle that 
the stage should never in the course of an act remain empty. 
This is called binding the scenes. But frequently the rule 
is observed in appearance only, since the personages of the 
preceding scene go out at one door the very moment that 
those of the next enter at another. Moreover, they must not 
make their entrance or exit without a motive distinctly an- 
nounced : to ensure this particular pains are taken ; the con- 
fidants are despatched on missions, and equals also are 
expressly, and sometimes not even courteously, told to go out 
of the way. With all these endeavours, the determinations of 
the places where things take place are often so vague and con- 
tradictory, that in many pieces, as a German writer-^' has well 
said, we ought to insert under the list of the dramatis personw 
— " The scene is on the theatre." 

These inconveniences arise almost inevitably from an 
anxious observance of the Greek rules, under a total change 
of circumstances. To avoid the pretended improbability which 
would lie in springing from one time and one place to another, 
they have often involved themselves in real and grave impro- 
babilities. A thousand times have we reason to repeat the 
observation of the Academy, in their criticism on the Gid, 
respecting the crowding together so many events in the period 
of twenty-four hours : " From the fear of sinning against the 
rules of art, the poet has rather chosen to sin against the rules 
of nature." But this imaginary contradiction between art and 
nature could only be suggested by a low and narrow range of 
artistic ideas. 

I come now to a more important point, namely, to the 

* Joh. Elias Schlegel, in his GedanJcen zur Aufnahme des D'dnischen 
Theatres. 

T? 9 



260 TREATMENT OF MYTHOLOGICAL MATERIALS. 

handling of tlie subject-matter unsuitably to its nature and 
quality. The Greek tragedians, witb a few exceptions, 
selected tlieir subjects from the national mythology. The 
French tragedians borrow theirs sometimes from the ancient 
mythology, but much more frequently from the history of 
almost every age and nation, and their mode of treating 
mythological and historical subjects respectively, is but too 
often not properly mythological, and not properly historical. 
I will explain myself more distinctly. The poet who selects 
an ancient mythological fable, that is, a fable connected by hal- 
lowing tradition with the religious belief of the Greeks, should 
transport both himself and his spectators into the spirit of anti- 
quity; he should keep ever before our minds the simple man- 
ners of the heroic ages, with which alone such violent passions 
and actions are consistent and credible ; his personages should 
preserve that near resemblance to the gods which, from their 
descent, and the frequency of their immediate intercourse with 
them, the ancients believed them to possess; the marvellous 
in the Greek religion should not be purposely avoided or 
understated, but the imagination of the spectators should be 
required to surrender itself fully to the belief of it. Instead 
of this, however, the French poets have given to their mytho- 
logical heroes and heroines the refinement of the fashionable 
world, and the court manners of the present day; they have, 
because those heroes were princes (" shepherds of the people," 
Homer calls them), accounted for their situations and views 
by the motives of a calculating policy, and violated, in every 
point, not merely archseological costume, but all the costume 
of character. In Phoidra, this princess is, upon the supposed 
death of Theseus, to be declared regent during the minority of 
her son. How was this compatible with the relations of the 
Grecian women of that day? It brings us down to the times 
of a Cleopatra. Hermione remains alone, without the pro- 
tection of a brother or a father, at the court of Pyrrhus, nay, 
even in his palace, and yet she is not married to him. With 
the ancients, and not merely in the Homeric age, marriage 
consisted simply in the bride being received into the bride- 
groom's house. But whatever justification of Hermione's situa- 
tion may be found in the practice of European courts, it is not 
the less repugnant to female dignity, and the more indecorous, 
as Hermione is in love with the unwilling Pyrrhus, and uses 



VIOLATION OP COSTUME. 261 

every influence to incline him to marriage. What would the 
Greeks have thought of this bold and indecent courtship? No 
doubt it would appear equally ojQTensive to a French audience, 
if Andromache were exhibited to them in the situation in 
which she appears in Euripides, where, as a captive, her 
person is enjoyed by the conqueror of her country. But when 
the ways of thinking of two nations are so totally different, 
why should there be so painful an effort to polish a subject 
founded on the manners of the one, with the manners of the 
other? What is allowed to remain after this polishing pro- 
cess will always exhibit a striking incongruity with that 
which is new-modelled, and to change the whole is either 
impossible, or in nowise preferable to a new invention. The 
Grecian tragedians certainly allowed themselves a great 
latitude in changing the circumstances of their myths, but 
the alterations were always consistent with the general and 
prevalent notions of the heroic age. On the other hand, they 
always left the characters as they received them from tradi- 
tion and an earlier fiction, by means of which the cunning of 
Ulysses, the wisdom of Nestor, and the wrath of Achilles, had 
almost become proverbial. Horace particularly insists on the 
rule. But how unlike is the Achilles of Racine's Iphigenia to 
the Achilles of Homer ! The gallantry ascribed to him is not 
merely a sin against Homer, but it renders the whole story 
improbable. Are human sacrifices conceivable among a people 
whose chiefs and heroes are so susceptible of the tenderest 
emotions 1 In vain recourse is had to the powerful influences 
of religion : history teaches that a cruel religion invariably 
becomes milder with the softening manners of a people. 

In these new exhibitions of ancient fables, the marvellous 
has been studiously rejected as alien to our belief. But when 
we are once brought from a world in which it was a part of 
the very order of things, into a world entirely prosaical and 
historically settled, then whatever marvel the poet may 
exhibit must, from the insulated state in which it stands, ap- 
pear only so much the more incredible. In Homer, and in 
the Greek tragedians, everything takes place in the presence 
of the gods, and when they become visible, or manifest them- 
selves in some wonderful operation, we are in no degree 
astonished. On the other hand, all the labour and art of the 
modern poets, all the eloquence of their narratives, cannot 



262 Racine's iphigenia — achilles. 

reconcile our minds to these exhibitions. Examples are 
superfluous, tlie thing is so universally known. Yet I cannot 
help cursorily remarking how singularly Racine, cautious as 
he generally is, has on an occasion of this kind involved him- 
self in an inconsistency. Respecting the origin of the fable of 
Theseus descending into the world below to carry off Proser- 
pine for his friend Pirithous, he adopts the historical explana- 
tion of Plutarchj that he was the prisoner of a Thracian king, 
whose wife he endeavoured to carry off for his friend. On 
this he grounds the report of the death of Theseus, which, at 
the opening of the play, was current. And yet he allows 
Phaedra'^' to mention the fabulous tradition as an earlier 
achievement of the hero. How many women then did 
Theseus wish to carry off for Pirithous? Pradon manages 
this much better: when Theseus is asked by a confidant if 
he really had been in the world below, he answers, how could 
any sensible man possibly believe so silly a tale ! he merely 
availed himself of the credulity of the people, and gave out 
this report from political motives. 

So much with respect to the manner of handling mytholo- 
gical materials. With respect to the historical, in the first 
place, the same objection applies, namely, that the French 
manners of the day are substituted to those which properly 
belong to the several persons, and that the characters do not 
sufficiently bear the colour of their age and nation. But to 
this we must add another detrimental circumstance. A 
mythological subject is in its nature poetical, and ever ready 
to take a new poetical shape. In the French Tragedy, as in 
the Greek, an equable and pervading dignity is required, and 
the French language is even much more fastidious in this 
respect, as very many things cannot be at all mentioned in 
French poetry. But in history we are on a prosaic domain, 
and the truth of the picture requires conditions, circumstances, 
and features, which cannot be given without a greater or less 
descent from the elevation of the tragical cothurnus ; such as 
has been made without hesitation by Shakspeare, the most 
perfect of historical dramatists. The French tragedians, how- 
ever, could not bring their minds to submit to this, and hence 

* Je I'aime, non point tel que I'ont vu les enfers, 
Volage adorateur de mille objets divers, 
Qui va du dieu des morts deshonorer la couche. 



IDEA OF TRAGICAL DIGNITY. 263 

their works are frequently deficient in those circumstances 
which give life and truth to a picture ; and when an obstinate 
prosaical circumstance must after all be mentioned, they avail 
themselves of laboured and artificial circumlocutions. 

Respecting the tragic dignity of historical subjects, peculiar 
principles have prevailed. Corneille was in the best way of 
the world when he brought his Gid on the stage, a story of 
the middle ages, which belonged to a kindred people, charac- 
terized by chivalrous love and honour, and in which the 
principal characters are not even of princely rank. Had this 
example been followed, a number of prejudices respecting the 
tragic Ceremonial would have disappeared of themselves; 
Tragedy from its greater verisimilitude, and being most readily 
intelligible, and deriving its motives from still current modes 
of thinking and acting, would ha>ve come more home to the 
heart: the very nature of the subjects would alone have 
turned them from the stiff observation of the rules of the 
ancients, which they did not understand, as indeed Corneille 
never deviated so far from these rules as, in the train, no 
doubt, of his Spanish model, he does in this very piece ; in 
one word, the French Tragedy would have become national 
and truly romantic. But I know not what malignant star 
was in the ascendant : notwithstanding the extraordinary suc- 
cess of his Cid, Corneille did not go one step further, and the 
attempt which he made found no imitators. In the time of 
Louis XIV. it was considered as a matter established beyond 
dispute, that the French, nay generally the modern European 
history was not adapted for the purposes of tragedy. They 
had recourse therefore to the ancient universal history : be- 
sides the Romans and Grecians, they frequently hunted about 
among the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Egyptians, 
for events which, however obscure they might often be, they 
could dress out for the tragic stage. Racine, according to his 
own confession, made a hazardous attempt with the Turks ; 
it was successful, and since that time the necessary tragical 
dignity has been allowed to this barbarous people, among 
whom the customs and habits of the rudest despotism and 
the most abject slavery are often united in the same person, 
and nothing is known of love, but the most luxurious sen- 
suality; while, on the other hand, it has been refused to the 
Europeans, notwithstanding that their religion, their sense of 



264 CORNEILLE I THE CID. 

honour, and their respect for the female sex, plead so power- 
fully in their behalf. But it was merely modern, and moro 
particularly French names that, as untragical and unpoetical, 
could not, for a moment, be tolerated j for the heroes of anti- 
quity are with them Frenchmen in everything but the name; 
and antiquity was merely a thin veil beneath which the 
modern French character might be distinctly recognized. 
Eacine's Alexander is certainly not the Alexander of history; 
but if under this name we imagine to ourselves the great 
Conde, the whole will appear tolerably natural. And who 
does not suppose that Louis XIV. and the Duchess de la 
Valliere are represented under the names Titus and Berenice? 
The poet has himself flatteringly alluded to his sovereign. 
Voltaire's expression is somewhat strong, when he says that in 
reading the tragedies which succeeded those of Racine we 
might fancy ourselves perusing the romances of Mademoiselle 
Scuderi, which paint citizens of Paris under the names of 
heroes of antiquity. He alluded herein more particularly to 
Crebillon. Corneille and Racine, however, deeply tainted as 
they were with the way of thinking of their own nation, were 
still at times penetrated with the spirit of true objective 
exhibition. Corneille gives us a masterly picture of the 
Spaniards in the Cid; and this is conceivable enough, for he 
drew his materials from the fountain-head. With the excep- 
tion of the original sin of gallantry, he succeeded also pretty 
well with the Romans : of one part of their character, at least, 
he had a tolerable conception, their predominating patriotism, 
and unbending pride of liberty, and the magnanimity of their 
political sentiments. All this, it is true, is nearly the same 
as we find it in Lucan, varnished over with a certain inflation 
and self-conscious pomp. The simple republican austerity, 
and their religious submissiveness, was beyond his reach. 
Racine has admirably painted the corruj^tions of the Romans 
of the Empire, and the first timid outbreaks of Nero's 
tyranny. It is true, as he himself gratefully acknowledges, 
he had in this Tacitus for a predecessor, but still it is a 
great merit so ably to translate history into poetry. He 
had also a just perception of the general spirit of Hebrew 
history; here he was guided by religious reverence, which, 
in greater or less degree, the poet ought always to bring 
with him to his subject. He was less successful with the 



RACINE : HIS NERO BAJAZET. 265 

Turks: Bajazet makes love quite in the style of an Euro- 
pean; the bloodthirsty policy of Eastern despotism is well 
portrayed, it is true, in the Vizier : but the whole resembles 
Turkey upside down, where the women, instead of being 
slaves, have contrived to get possession of the government, 
which thereupon assumes so revolting an appearance as to in- 
cline us to believe the Turks are, after all, not much to blame 
in keeping their women under lock and key. Neither has 
Voltaire, in my opinion, succeeded much better in his Maho- 
met and Zaire; throughout we miss the glowing colouring of 
Oriental fancy. Voltaire has, however, this great merit, that 
as he insisted on treating subjects with more historical truth, 
he made it also the object of his own endeavours; and farther, 
that he again raised to the dignity of the tragical stage the 
chivalrous and Christian characters of modern Europe, which 
since the time of the Cid had been altogether excluded from 
it. His Lusignan and Nerestan are among his most truthful, 
affecting, and noble creations; his Tancred, although as a 
whole the invention is deficient in keeping, will always, like 
his namesake in Tasso, win every heart. A hire, in a histo- 
rical point of view, is highly eminent. It is singular enough 
that Voltaire, in his restless search after tragic materials, has 
actually travelled the whole world over ; for as in A hire he 
exhibits the American tribes of the other hemisphere, in his 
Dschingiskan he brings Chinese on the stage, from the farthest 
extremity of ours, who, however, from the faithful observa- 
tion of their costume, have almost the stamp of comic or 
grotesque figures. 

Unfortunately Voltaire came too late with his projected 
reformation of the theatre : much had been already ruined by 
the trammels within which French Tragedy had been so long 
confined; and the prejudice which gave such disproportionate 
importance to the observance of external rules and proprieties 
was, at it appears, established firmly and irrevocably. 

Next to the rules regarding the external mechanism, which 
without examination they had adopted from the ancients, the 
prevailing national ideas of social propriety were the princi- 
pal hindrances which impeded the French poets in the exer- 
cise of their talents, and in many cases put it altogether out 
of their power to reach the highest tragical effect. The pro- 
blem which the dramatic poet has to solve is to combine poetic 



266 DEVELOPMENT OF FRENCH TRAGEDY 

form with nature and truths and consequently nothing ought 
to be included in the former "vrhich is inadmissible by the 
latter. French Tragedy, from the time of Richelieu, developed 
itself under the favour and protection of the court ; and even 
its scene had (as already observed) the appearance of an 
antechamber. In such an atmosphere the spectators might 
impress the poet with the idea that courtesy is one of the 
original and essential ingredients of human nature. But in 
Tragedy men are either matched with men in fearful strife, or 
set in close struggle with misfortune j we can, therefore, exact 
from them only an ideal dignity, for from the nice observance 
of social punctilios they are absolved by their situation. Sa 
long as they possess sufficient presence of mind not to violate 
them, so long as they do not appear completely overpowered 
by their grief and mental agony, the deepest emotion is not 
as yet reached. The poet may indeed be allowed to take 
that care for his persons which Caesar, after his death-blow, 
had for himself, and make them fall with decorum. He must 
not exhibit human nature in all its repulsive nakedness. The 
most heart-rending and dreadful pictures must still be invested 
with beauty, and endued with a dignity higher than the com- 
mon reality. This miracle is effected by poetry : it has its 
indescribable sighs, its immediate accents of the deepest agony, 
in which there still runs a something melodious. It is only a 
certain full-dressed and formal beauty, which is incompatible 
with the greatest truth of expression. And yet it is exactly 
this beauty that is demanded in the style of a French tragedy. 
No doubt something too is to be ascribed to the quality of 
their language and versification. The French language is 
wholly incapable of many bold flights, it has little poetical 
freedom, and it carries into poetry all the grammatical stiffness 
of prose. This their poets ha,ve often acknowledged and 
lamented. Besides, the Alexandrine with its couplets, with its 
hemistichs of equal length, is a very symmetrical and monoton- 
ous species of verse, and far better adapted for the expression 
of antithetical maxims, than for the musical delineation of 
passion with its unequal, abrupt, and erratic course of thoughts. 
But the main cause lies in a national feature, in the social 
endeavour never to forget themselves in presence of others, 
and always to exhibit themselves to the greatest possible advan- 
tage. It has been often remarked, that in French Tragedy 



THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND VERSIFICATION. 267 

the poet is always too easily seen through the discourses of 
the different personages, that he communicates to them his 
own presence of mind, his cool reflections on their situation, 
and his desire to shine on all occasions. When most of their 
tragical speeches are closely examined, they are seldom found 
to be such as the persons speaking or acting by themselves 
without restraint would deliver; something or other is 
generally discovered in them which betrays a reference to the 
spectator more or less perceptible. Before, however, our com- 
passion can be powerfully excited, we must be familiar with 
the persons ; but how is this possible if we are always to see 
them under the yoke of their designs and endeavours, or, what 
is worse, of an unnatural and assumed grandeur of character ? 
We must overhear them in their unguarded moments, when 
they imagine themselves alone, and throw aside all care and 
reserve. 

Eloquence may and ought to have a place in Tragedy, but 
in so far as it is in some measure artificial in its method and 
preparation, it can only be in character when the speaker is 
sufficiently master of himself; for, for overpowering passion, 
an unconscious and involuntary eloquence is alone suitable. 
The truly inspired orator forgets himself in the subject of his 
eloquence. We call it rhetoric when he thinks less of his 
subject than of himself, and of the art in which he flatters 
himself he has obtained a mastery. Rhetoric, and rhetoric in 
a court dress, prevails but too much in many French trage- 
dies, especially in those of Corneille, instead of the suggestions 
of a noble, but simple and artless nature; Racine and Vol- 
taire, however, have come much nearer to the true conception 
of a mind carried away by its sufferings. Whenever the 
tragic hero 'is able to express his pain in antitheses and inge- 
nious allusions, we may safely reserve our pity. This sort of 
conventional dignity is, as it were, a coat of mail, which pre- 
vents the pain from reaching the inmost heart. On account 
of their retaining this festal pomp in situations where the 
most complete self-forgetfulness would be natural, Schiller has 
wittily enough compared the heroes in French Tragedy to the 
kings in old engravings who lie in bed, crown, sceptre, 
robes and all. 

This social refinement prevails through the whole of French, 
literature and art. Social refinement sharpens, no doubt, the 



268 OBSERVATION OF CONVENTIONAL RULES. 

sense for the ludicrous, and even on that account, when it is 
carried to a fastidious excess, it is the death of everything like 
enthusiasm. For all enthusiasm, all poetry, has a ludicrous 
aspect for the unfeeling. When, therefore, such a way of 
thinking has once become universal in a nation, a certain 
negative criticism will be associated with it. A thousand 
different things must be avoided, and in attending to these, 
the highest object of all, that which ought properly to be 
accomplished, is lost sight of. The fear of ridicule is the con- 
science of French poets; it has dipt their wings, and impaired 
their flight. For it is exactly in the most serious kind of 
poetry that this fear must torment them the most ; for ex- 
tremes run into one another, and whenever pathos fails it 
gives rise to laughter and parody. It is amusing to witness 
Voltaire's extreme agony when he was threatened with a 
parody of his Semiramis on the Italian theatre. In a petition 
to the queen, this man, whose whole life had been passed in 
turning every thing great and venerable into ridicule, urges 
his situation as one of the servants of the king's household, as 
a ground for obtaining from high authority the prohibition of 
a very innocent and allowable amusement. As French wits 
have indulged themselves in turning every thing in the world 
into ridicule, and more especially the mental productions of 
other nations, they will also allow us on our part to divert 
ourselves at the expense of their tragic writers, if with all 
their care they have now and then split upon the rock of 
which they were most in dread. Lessing has, with the most 
irresistible and victorious wit, pointed out the ludicrous nature 
of the very plans of Rodogune, Semiramis, Mei^ope, and Zaire. 
But both in this respect and with regard to single laughable 
turns, a rich harvest might yet be gathered*. But the war which 

* A few examples of tlie latter will be sufficient. The lines with which 
Theseus in the (Edipus of Comeille opens his -part, are deserving of one of 
the first places : 

Quelque ravage affreux qu'dtale ici la peste 
L'absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste. 

The following from his Otho are equally well known : 

Dis moi done, lorsqu' Othon s'est ofFert a CamiEe, 
A-t-U paru contraint ? a-t-elle etd facUe ? 
Son hommage aupres d'elle a-t-U eu pleia effet ? 
Comment Ta-t-elle pris, et comment I'a-t-il fait ? 



VOLTAIRE : HIS LUDICROUS INCONSISTENCIES. 269 

Lessing carried on against tlie French stage was mucli more 
merciless, perhaps, than we, in the present day, should be jus- 

"WTiere it is almost inconceivable, that the poet could have failed to see the 
application which might be made of the passage, especially as he allows 
the confidant to answer, J^ai tout vu. That Attila should treat the kings 
who are dependent on him like good-for-nothing fellows : 

lis ne sont pas venus, nos deux rois ; qu'on leur die 
Qu'ils se font trop attendre, et qu' Attila s'ennuie 
Qu'alors que je les mande ils doivent se hater : 

may in one view appear very serious and true; but nevertheless it appears 
exceedingly droll to us from the turn of expression, and especially from its 
being the opening of the piece. Generally speaking, with respect to the 
ludicrous, Corneille lived in a state of great innocence ; siace his time the 
world has become a great deal more witty. Hence, after making all allow- 
ances for what he cannot justly be blamed for, what, namely, arises merely 
from his language having become obsolete, we shall stiU find an ample field 
remaining for our ridicule. Among the numerous plays which are not 
reckoned among his master-pieces, we have only to turn up any one at 
random to light upon numerous passages susceptible of a ludicrous appli- 
cation. Racine, from the refinement and moderation which were natural 
to him, was much better guarded against this danger ; but yet, here and 
there, expressions of the same kind escape from him. Among these we 
may include the whole of the speech in which Theramenes exhorts his 
pupil Hippolytus to yield himself up to love. The ludicrous can hardly be 
carried farther than it is in these lines : 

Craint-on de s'egarer sur les traces d' Hercule ? 
Quels courages Venus n'a-t-elle pas domtes ? 
Vous meme, ow seriez vous, vous qui la combattez, 
Si toujours Antiope, a ses loix opposee, 
WvLUQ pudique ardeur n'eut brule pour Thesee ? 

In Berenice, Antiochus receives his confidant, whom he had sent to an- 
nounce his visit to the Queen, with the words : Arsace, entrerons-nous ? 
This humble patience in an antechamber would appear even undignified in 
Comedy, but it appears too pitiful even for a second-rate tragicjd hero. 
Antiochus says afterwards to the queen : 

Je me suis tu cinq ans 
Madame, et vais encore me taire plus long-terns — 

And to give an immediate proof of his intention by his conduct, he repeats 
after this no less than fifty verses in a breath. 

When Orosman says to Zaire, whom he pretends to love with European 
tenderness, 

Je sais que notre loi, favorable aux plaisirs 
Ouvre un champ sans hmite a nos vastes desirs : 

his language is still more indecorous than laughable. But the answer of 



270 LESSING AND TEE FRENCH STAGE. ^^T 

tified in waging. At the time when he published his Drama- 
turgie, we Germans had scarcely any but French tragedies 
upon our stageS;, and the extravagant predilectiou for them as 
classical models had not then been combated. At present the 
national taste has declared itself so decidedly against them, 
that we have nothing to fear of an illusion in that quarter. 

It is farther said that the French dramatists have to do 
with a public not only extremely fastidious in its dislike of 
any low intermixture, and highly susceptible of the ludicrous, 
but also extremely impatient. We will allow them the full 
enjoyment of this self-flattery : for we have no doubt that their 
real meaning is, that this impatience is a proof of quickness 
of apprehension and sharpness of wit. It is susceptible, how- 
ever, of another interpretation : superficial knowledge, and 
more especially intrinsic emptiness of mind, invariably display 
themselves in fretful impatience. But however this may be, 
the disposition in question has had both a favourable and an 
unfavourable influence on the structure of their pieces. Fa- 
vourable, in so far as it has compelled them to lop off every 
superfluity, to go directly to the main business, to be perspi- 
cuous, to study compression, to endeavour to turn every 
moment to the utmost advantage. All these are good theatri- 
cal proprieties, and have been the means of recommending the 
French tragedies as models of perfection to those who in the ex- 
amination of works of art, measure everything by the dry test 
of the understanding, rather than listen to the voice of imagi- 
nation and feeling. It has been unfavourable, in so far as 
even motiou, rapidity, and a continued stretch of expectation, 
become at length monotonous and wearisome. It is like a 
music from which the piano should be altogether excluded, 
and in which even the difference between /o?^^e and fortissimo 
should, from the mistaken emulation of the performers, be 
rendered indistinguishable. I find too few resting-places in 

Zaire to her confidante, who thereupon reminded her that she is a Christian, 
is highly comic : 

Ah ! que dis-tu "i pourquoi rappeler mes ennuis ? 
Upon the whole, however, Voltaire is much more upon his guard against 
the ludicrous than his predecessors : this was perfectly natural, for in his 
time the rage of turning every thing into ridicule was most prevalent. We 
may boldly afl&rm that in oui- days a single verse of the same kind as hun^ 
dreds in ComeiUe would inevitably ruin any play. 



INFLUENCE ON THE STRUCTURE OF PIECES. 271 

their tragedies similar to those in the ancient tragedies where 
the lyric parts come in. There are moments in human life 
which are dedicated by every religious mind to self-medita- 
tion, and when, with the view turned towards the past and 
the future, it keeps as it were holiday. This sacredness of 
the moment is not, I think, sufficiently reverenced : the actors 
and spectators alike are incessantly hurried on to something 
that is to follow ; and we shall find very few scenes indeed, 
where a mere state, independent of its causal connexion, is 
represented developing itself. The question with them is 
always what happens, and only too seldom how happens it. 
And yet this is the main point, if an impression is to be miide 
on the witnesses of human events. Hence every thing like 
silent effect is almost entirely excluded from their domain of 
dramatic art. The only leisure which remains for the actor 
for his silent pantomime is during the delivery of the long 
discourses addressed to him, when, however, it more frequently 
serves to embarrass him than assists him in the development 
of his part. They are satisfied if the web of the intrigue keeps 
uninterruptedly in advance of their own quickness of tact, 
and if in the speeches and answers the shuttle flies diligently 
backwards and forwards to the end. 

Generally speaking, impatience is by no means a good dis- 
position for the reception of the beautiful. Even dramatic 
poetry, the most animated production of art, has its contem- 
plative side, and where this is neglected, the representation, 
from its very rapidity and animation, engenders only a 
deafening tumult in our mind, instead of that inward music 
which ought to accompany it. 

The existence of many technical imperfections in their 
tragedy has been admitted even by French critics themselves ; 
the confidants, for instance. Every hero and heroine regularly 
drags some one along with them, a gentleman in waiting or 
a court lady. In not a few pieces, we may count three or 
four of these merely passive hearers, who sometimes open 
their lips to tell something to their patron which he must 
have known better himself, or who on occasion are dispatched 
hither and thither on messages. The confidants in the Greek 
tragedies, either old guardian-slaves and nurses, or servants, 
have always peculiar characteristical destinations, and the 
ancient tragedians felt so little the want of communications 



272 FALSE SYSTEM OF EXPOSITIONS 

between a hero and his confidant, to make us acquainted 
with the hero's state of mind and views, that they even 
introduce as a mute personage so important and proverbially 
famous a friend as a Pylades. But whatever ridicule was 
cast on the confidants, and however great the reproach of 
being reduced to make use of them, no attempt was ever 
made till the time of Alfieri to get rid of them. 

The expositions or statements of the preliminary situation 
of things are another nuisance. They generally consist of 
choicely turned disclosures to the confidants, delivered in a 
happy moment of leisure. That very public whose impatience 
keeps the poets and players under such strict discipline, has, 
however, patience enough to listen to the prolix unfolding of 
what ought to be sensibly developed before their eyes. It is 
allowed that an exposition is seldom unexceptionable; that in 
their speeches the persons generally begin farther back than 
they naturally ought, and that they tell one another what 
they must both have known before, &c. If the afiair is com- 
plicated, these expositions are generally extremely tedious : 
those of Heraclius and Rodogune absolutely make the head 
giddy. Chaulieu says of Crebillon's RhadamisU, " The piece 
would be perfectly clear were it not for the exposition." To 
me it seems that their whole system of expositions, both in 
Tragedy and in High Comedy, is exceedingly erroneous. No- 
thing can be more ill-judged than to begin at once to instruct 
us without any dramatic movement. At the first drawing up 
of the curtain the spectator's attention is almost unavoidably 
distracted by external circumstances, his interest has not yet 
been excited; and this is precisely the time chosen by the 
poet to exact from him an earnest of undivided attention to 
a dry explanation, — a demand which he can hardly be sup- 
posed ready to meet. It will perhaps be urged that the 
same thing was done by the Greek poets. But with them 
the subject Avas for the most part extremely simple, and 
already known to the spectators ; and their expositions, with 
the exception of the unskilful prologues of Euripides, have 
not the didactic particularising tone of the French, but are 
full of life and motion. How admirable again are the expo- 
sitions of Shakspeare and Calderon ! At the very outset they 
lay hold of the imagination; and when they have once gained 
the S2)ectator's interest and sympathy they then bring forward 



THEORY OP THE TRAGIC ART IN FRANCE. 273 

the information necessary for the full understanding of the 
implied transactions. This means is^ it is true, denied to 
the French tragic poets, who, if at all, are only very sparingly 
allowed the use of any thing calculated to make an impres- 
sion on the senses, any thing like corporeal action ; and who, 
therefore, for the sake of a gradual heightening of the im- 
pression are obliged to reserve to the last acts the little which 
is within their power. 

To sum up all my previous observations in a few words : 
the French have endeavoured to form their tragedy according 
to a strict idea ; but instead of this they have set up merely 
an abstract notion. They require tragical dignity and gran- 
deur, tragical situations, passions, and pathos, altogether 
simple and pure, and without any foreign appendages. Stript 
thus of their proper investiture, they lose much in truth, pro- 
fundity, and character; and the whole composition is deprived 
of the living charm of variety, of the magic of picturesque 
situations, and of all those ravishing effects which a light but 
preparatory matter, when left to itself, often produces on the 
mind by its marvellous and spontaneous growth. With respect 
to the theory of the tragic art, they are yet at the very same 
point that they were in the art of gardening before the time of 
Lenotre. All merit consisted, in their judgment, in extorting 
a triumph from nature by means of art. They had no other 
idea of regularity than the measured symmetry of straight 
alleys, clipped edges, &c. Vain would have been the attempt 
to make those who laid out such gardens to comprehend that 
there could be any plan, any hidden order, in an English 
park, and demonstrate to them that a succession of landscapes, 
which from their gradation, their alternation, and their oppo- 
sition, give effect to each other, did all aim at exciting in us 
a certain mental impression. 

The rooted and lasting prejudices of a whole nation are sel- 
dom accidental, but are connected with some general want of 
intrinsic capacities, from which even the eminent minds who 
lead the rest are not exempted. We are not, therefore, to 
consider such prejudices merely as causes; we must also con- 
sider them at the same time as important effects. We allow 
that the narrow system of rules, that a dissecting criticism 
of the understanding, has shackled the efforts of the French 
tragedians; still, however, it remains doubtful whether of 

S 



274 THEORY OF THE TRAGIC ART IN FRANCE. 

tlieir own inclination tliey would ever have made choice 
of more comprehensive designs, and, if so, in what way they 
would have filled them up. The most distinguished among 
them have certainly not been deficient in means and talents. 
In a particular examination of their diflferent productions we 
cannot show them any favour; but, on a general view, they 
are more deserving of pity than censure; and when, under 
such unfavourable circumstances, they yet produce what is 
excellent, they are doubly entitled to our admiration, although 
we can by no means admit the justice of the common-place 
observation, that the overcoming of diflficulty is a source of 
pleasure, nor find anything meritorious in a work of art 
merely because it is artificially composed. As for the claim 
which the French advance to set themselves up, in spite of all 
their one sidedness and inadequacy of view, as the lawgivers 
of taste, it must be rejected with becoming indignation. 



USE MADE OF THE SPANISH THEATRE. 275 



LECTURE XIX. 

Use at first made of the Spanish Theatre by the French — General Cha- 
racter of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire —Review of the principal 
Works of Corneille and of Racine — Thomas Corneille. and Crebillon. 

I HAVE briefly noticed all that was necessary to mention 
of the antiquities of the French stage. The duties of the 
poet were gradually more rigorously laid down, under a 
belief in the authority of the .ancients, and the infallibility 
of Aristotle. By their own inclination, however, the poets 
were led to the Spanish theatre, as long as the Dramatic Art 
in France, under a native education, had not attained its full 
maturity. They not only imitated the Spaniards, but, from 
this mine of ingenious invention, even borrowed largely and 
directly. I do not merely allude to the earlier times under 
Bichelieu; this state of things continued through the whole 
of the first half of the age of Louis XIV.; and Racine is per- 
haps the oldest poet who seems to have been altogether unac- 
quainted with the Spaniards, or at least who was in no 
manner influenced by them. The comedies of Corneille are 
nearly all taken from Spanish pieces ; and of his celebrated 
works, the Cid and Don Sanclio of A r agon are also Spanish. 
The only piece of Rotrou which still keeps its place on the the- 
atre, Wenceslas, is borrowed from Francisco de Roxas : Moliere's 
unfinished Princess of Elis is from Moreto, his Don Garcia of 
Navarre from an unknown author, and the Festin de Fierre 
carries its origin in its front* : we have only to look at the 
works of Thomas Corneille to be at once convinced that, with 
the exception of a few, they are all Spanish ; as also are the 
earlier labours of Quinault, namely, his comedies and tragi- 
comedies. The right of drawing without scruple from this 
source was so universal, that the French imitators, when they 
borrowed without the least disguise, did not even give them- 
selves the trouble of naming the author of the original, and 

* And betrays at the same time Mohere's ignorance of Spanish. For if 
he had possessed even a tolerable knowledge of it, how could he have 
translated El Convidado de Piedra (the Stone Guest) into the Stone 
Feast, which has no meaning here, and could only be applicable to the 
leasts of Midas ? 

s 2 



276 VOLTAIRE — HERACLIUS — GARCIA DE LA HTTERTA. 

assigning to tLe true owner a part of the applause whicli they 
might earn. In the Cid alone the text of the Spanish poet is 
frequently cited, and that only because Corneille's claim to 
originality had been called in question. 

We should certainly derive much instruction from a dis- 
covery of the prototypes, when they are not among the more 
celebrated, or already known by their titles, and thereupon 
instituting a comparison between them and their copies. We 
must, however, go very differently to work from Voltaire in 
HeracUus, in which, as Garcia de la Huerta* has incontestably 
proved, he displays both great ignorance and studied and dis- 
gusting perversions. If the most of these imitations give little 
pleasure to France in the present day, this decision is noways 
against the originals, which must always have suffered con- 
siderably from the recast. The national characters of the 
French and Spanish are totally different; and consequently 
also the spirit of their language and poetry. The most tem- 
perate and restrained character belongs to the French; the 
Spaniard, though in the remotest West, displays, what his 
history may easily account for, an Oriental vein, which luxu- 
riates in a profusion of bold images and sallies of wit. When 
we strip their dramas of these rich and splendid ornaments, 
when, for the glowing colours of their romance and the musical 
variations of the rhymed strophes in which they are composed, 
we compel them to assume the monotony of the Alexandrine, 
and submit to the fetters of external regularities, while the 
character and situations are allowed to remain essentially the 
same, there can no longer be any harmony between the sub- 
ject and its mode of treatment, and it loses that truth which 
it may still retain within the domain of fancy. 

The charm of the Spanish poetry consists, generally speak- 
ing, in the union of a sublime and enthusiastic earnestness of 
feeling, which peculiarly descends from the North, with the 
lovely breath of the South, and the dazzling pomp of the 
East. Corneille possessed an affinity to the Spanish spirit, 
but only in the first point; he might be taken for a Spaniard 
educated in Normandy. It is much to be regretted that he 
had not, after the composition of the Cid, employed himself, 
without depending on foreign models, upon subjects which 
would have allowed him to follow altogether his feeling for 
chivalrous honour and fidelity. But on the other hand he took 
* In the introduction to his Theatro Hespanol. 



CORNEILLE—- GENERAL CHARACTER. 277 

himself to the Roman history ; and the severe patriotism of 
the older, and the ambitious policy of the later Romans, sup- 
plied the place of chivalry, and in some measure assumed its 
garb. It was by no means so much his object to excite our 
terror and compassion as our admiration for the characters 
and astonishment at the situations of his heroes. He hardly 
ever affects us ; and is seldom capable of agitating our minds. 
And here I may indeed observe, that such is his partiality for 
exciting our wonder and admiration, that, not contented with 
exacting it for the heroism of virtue, he claims it also for the 
heroism of vice, by the boldness, strength of soul, presence of 
mind, and elevation above all human weakness, with which he 
endows his criminals of both sexes. Nay, often his characters 
express themselves in the language of ostentatious pride, 
without our being well able to see what they have to be proud 
of: they are merely proud of their pride. We cannot often 
say that we take an interest in them: they either appear, 
from the great resources which they possess within themselves, 
to stand in no need of our compassion, or else they are unde- 
serving of it. He has delineated the conflict of passions and 
motives ; but for the most part not immediately as such, but 
as already metamorphosed into a contest of principles. It is 
in loA'e that he has been found coldest j and this was because 
he could not prevail on himself to paint it as an amiable weak- 
ness, although he everywhere introduced it, even where most 
unsuitable, either out of a condescension to the taste of the 
age or a private inclination for chivalry, where love always 
appears as the ornament of valour, as the checquered favour 
waving at the lance, or the elegant ribbon-knot to the sword. 
Seldom does he paint love as a power which imperceptibly 
steals upon us, and gains at last an involuntary and irresis- 
tible dominion over us; but as an homage freely chosen at 
first, to the exclusion of duty, but afterwards maintaining its 
place along with it. This is the case at least in his better 
pieces ; for in his later works love is frequently compelled to 
give way to ambition ; and these two springs of action mutu- 
ally weaken each other. His females are generally not suffi- 
ciently feminine ; and the love which they inspire is with 
them not the last object, but merely a means to something 
beyond. They drive their lovers into great dangers, and 
sometimes also to great crimes ; and the men too often appear 
to disadvantage, while they allow themselves to become mere 



278 CORNEILLE GENERAL CHARACTER. 

Instrunients in tlie hands of women, or to be dispatched by 
them on heroic errands, as it were, for the sake of winning 
the prize of love held out to them. Such women as Emilia 
in Cinna and Rodogune, must surely be unsusceptible of love. 
But if in his principal characters, Corneille, by exaggerating 
the energetic and underrating the passive part of our nature, 
has departed from truth ; if his heroes display too much voli- 
tion and too little feeling, he is still much more unnatural in 
his situations. He has, in defiance of all probability, pointed 
them in such a wny that we might with great propriety give 
them the name of tragical antitheses, and it becomes almost 
natural if the personages express themselves in a series of 
epigrammatical maxims. He is fond of exhibiting perfectly 
symmetrical oppositions. His eloquence is often admirable 
from its strength and compression; but it sometimes degene- 
rates into bombast, and exhausts itself in superfluous accu- 
mulations. The later Romans, Seneca the philosopher, and 
Lucan, were considered by him too much in the light of 
models ; and unfortunately he possessed also a vein of Seneca 
the tragedian. From this wearisome pomp of declamation, a 
few simple words interspersed here and there, have been often 
made the subject of extravagant praise -''. If they stood alone 
they would certainly be entitled to praise; but they are im- 
mediately followed by long harangues which destroy their 
effect. When the Spartan mother, on delivering the shield 
to her son, used the well-known words, "This, or on this!'' 
she certainly made no farther addition to them. Corneille 
was peculiarly well qualified to portray ambition and the lust 
of power, a passion which stifles all other human feelings, and 
never properly erects its throne till the mind has become a 
cold and dreary wilderness. His youth was passed in the 
last civil wars, and he still saw around him remains of the 
feudal independence. I will not pretend to decide how much 
this may have influenced him, but it is undeniable that the 
sense which he often showed of the great importance of poli- 
tical questions was altogether lost in the following age, and 
did not make its appearance again before Voltaire. How- 
ever he, like the rest of the poets of his time, paid his tribute 

* Por instance, the QuHl mourut of the old Horatius ; the Soyons amiSy 
Cinna : also the Moi of Medea, which, we may observe in passing, is bor- 
rowed from Seneca. 



CORNEILLE RACINE. 279 

of flattery to Louis the Fourteenth; in verses which are now 
forgotten. 

Racine^ who for all but an entire century has been unhesi- 
tatingly proclaimed the favourite poet of the French nation, 
was by no means during his lifetime in so enviable a situation, 
and, notwithstanding many an instance of brilliant success, 
could not rest as yet in the pleasing and undisturbed posses- 
sion of his fame. His merit in giving the last polish to the 
French language, his unrivalled excellence both of expression 
and A^ersification, were not then allowed ; on the stage he had 
rivals, of whom some were undeservedly preferred before him. 
On the one hand, the exclusive admirers of Corneille, with 
Madame Sevigne at their head, made a formal party against 
him; on the other hand, Pradon, a younger candidate for the 
honours of the Tragic Muse, endeavoured to wrest the victory 
from him, and actually succeeded, not merely, it would appear, 
in gaining over the crowd, but the very court itself, notwith- 
standing the zeal with which he was opposed by Boileau. 
The chagrin to which this gaA^e rise, unfortunately inter- 
rupted his theatrical career at the very period when his mind 
had reached its full maturity : a mistaken piety afterwards 
prevented him from resuming his theatrical occupations, and 
it required all the influence of Madame Maintenon to induce 
him to employ his talent upon religious subjects for a parti- 
cular occasion. It is probable that but for this interruption, 
he would have carried his art still higher : for in the works 
which we have of him, we trace a gradually advancing im- 
provement. He is a poet in every way worthy of our love : 
he possessed a delicate susceptibility for all the tenderer emo- 
tions, and great sweetness in expressing them. His mode- 
ration, which never allowed him to transgress the bounds 
of propriety, must not be estimated too highly : for he did 
not possess strength of character in any eminent degree, 
nay, there are even marks of weakness perceptible in him, 
which, it is said, he also exhibited in private life. He has 
also paid his homage to the sugared gallantry of his age, 
where it merely serves as a show of love to connect together 
the intrigue ; but he has often also succeeded completely in 
the delineation of a more genuine love, especially in his 
female characters; and many of his love-scenes breathe a 
tender A^oluptuousness, which, from the A'eil of reserve and 
modesty thrown over it, steals only the more seductively into 



280 RACINE — GENERAL CHARACTER. 

the soul. The inconsistencies of unsuccessful passion, the wan- 
derings of a mind diseased, and a prey to irresistible desire, 
he has portrayed more touchingly and truthfully than any 
French poet before him, or even perhaps after him. Gene- 
rally speaking, he was more inclined to the elegiac and the 
idyllic, than to the heroic. I will not say that he would 
never have elevated himself to more serious and dignified 
conceptions than are to be found in his Britannicus and Mith- 
ridat; but here we must distinguish between that which his 
subject suggested, and what he painted with a peculiar fond- 
ness, and wherein he is not so much the dramatic artist as 
the spokesman of his own feelings. At the same time, it 
ought not to be forgotten that Racine composed most of his 
pieces when very young, and that this may possibly have in- 
fluenced his choice. He seldom disgusts us, like Corneille 
and Voltaire, with the undisguised repulsiveness of unneces- 
sary crimes; he has, however, often veiled much that in 
reality is harsh, base, and mean, beneath the forms of polite- 
ness and courtesy. I cannot allow the plans of his pieces to 
be, as the French critics insist, unexceptionable; those which 
he borrowed from ancient mythology are, in my opinion, the 
most liable to objection; but still I believe, that with the 
rules and observations which he took for his guide, he could 
hardly in most cases have extricated himself from his difficul- 
ties-more cautiously and with greater propriety than he has 
actually done. Whatever may be the defects of his produc- 
tions separately considered, when we compare him with others, 
and view him in connexion with the French literature in 
general, we can hardly bestow upon him too high a meed of 
praise. 

A new asra of French Tragedy begins with Voltaire, whose 
first appearance, in his early youth, as a writer for the theatre, 
followed close upon the age of Louis the Fourteenth. I have 
already, in a general way, alluded to the changes and enlarge- 
ments which he projected, and partly carried into execution. 
Corneille and Racine led a true artist's life : they were dra- 
matic poets with their whole soul; their desire, as authors, 
was confined to that object alone, and all their studies were 
directed to the stage. Voltaire, on the contrary, wished to 
shine in every possible deyjartment; a restless vanity permit- 
ted him not to be satisfied with the pursuit of perfection 
in any single walk of literature ; and from the variety of sub- 



THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE VOLTAIRE. 281 

jects on whicli liis mind was employed^ it was impossible 
for him to avoid shallowness and immaturity of ideas. To 
form a correct idea of his relation to his two predecessors 
in the tragic art^ we must institute a comparison between the 
characteristic features of the preceding classical age and of that 
in which he gave the tone. In the time of Louis the Four- 
teenth, a certain traditionary code of opinions on all the most 
important concerns of humanity reigned in full force and 
unquestioned ; and even in poetry, the object was not so much 
to enrich as to form the mind, by a liberal and noble enter- 
tainment. But now, at length, the want of original thinking 
began to be felt; however, it unfortunately happened, that 
bold presumption hurried far in advance of profound inquiry, 
and hence the spread of public immorality was quick followed 
by a dangerous scoffing scepticism, which shook to the foun- 
dation every religious and moral conviction, and the very 
principles of society itself. Voltaire was by turns philoso- 
pher, rhetorician, sophist, and buffoon. The want of single- 
ness, which more or less characterised all his views, was irre- 
concileable with a complete freedom of prejudice even as an 
artist in his career. As he saw the public longing for informa- 
tion, which was rather tolerated by the favour of the great than 
authorised and formally approved of and dispensed by appro- 
priate public institutions, he did not fail to meet their want, 
and to deliver, in beautiful verses, on the stage, what no man 
durst yet preach from the pulpit or the professor's chair. He 
made use of poetry as a means to accomplish ends foreign 
and extrinsecal to it; and this has often polluted the artistic 
purity of his compositions. Thus, the end of his Mahomet 
was to portray the dangers of fanaticism, or rather, laying 
aside all circumlocution, of a belief in revelation. For this 
purpose, he has most unjustifiably disfigured a great historical 
character, revoltingly loaded him with the most crying enor- 
mities, with which he racks and tortures our feelings. Univer- 
sally known, as he was, to be the bitter enemy of Christianity, 
he bethought himself of a new triumph for his vanity; in 
Zaire and Alzire, he had recourse to Christian sentiments to 
excite emotion : and here, for once, his versatile heart, which, 
indeed, in its momentary ebullitions, was not unsusceptible of 
good feelings, shamed the rooted malice of his understanding ; 
he actually succeeded, and these affecting and religious pas- 
sages cry out loudly against the slanderous levity of his 



282 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — VOLTAIRE. 

petulant misrepresentations. In England he had acquired 
a knowledge of a free constitution, and became an enthusiastic 
admirer of liberty. Corneille had introduced the Roman 
republicanism and general politics into his works, for the sake 
of their poetical energy. Voltaire again .exhibited them 
under a poetical form, because of the political ejQfect he 
thought them calculated to produce on popular opinion. As 
he fancied he was better acquainted with the Greeks than 
his predecessors, and as he had obtained a slight knowledge 
of the English theatre and Shakspeare, which, before him, 
■were for France, quite an unknown land, he wished in 
like manner to use them to his own advantage. — He insisted 
on the earnestness, the severity, and the simplicity of the 
Greek dramatic representation; and actually in so far ap- 
proached them, as to exclude love from various subjects to 
which it did not properly belong. He was desirous of 
reviving the majesty of the Grecian scenery; and here his 
endeavours had this good effect, that in theatrical representa- 
tion the eye was no longer so miserably neglected as it had 
been. He borrowed from Shakspeare, as he thought, bold 
strokes of theatrical effect; but here he was the least success- 
ful; when, in imitation of that great master, he ventured in 
Semiramis to call up a ghost from the lower world, he fell 
into innumerable absurdities. In a word he was perpetually 
making experiments with dramatic art, availing himself of 
some new device for effect. Hence some of his works seem 
to have stopt short half way between studies and finished 
productions; there is a trace of something unfixed and unfi- 
nished in his whole mental formation. Corneille and Racine, 
within the limits which they set themselves, are much more 
perfect; they are altogether that which they are, and we 
have no glimpses in their works of any supposed higher 
object beyond them. Voltaire's pretensions are much more ex- 
tensive than his means. Corneille has expressed the maxims 
of heroism with greater sublimity, and Racine the natural 
emotions with a sweeter gracefulness ; while Voltaire, it must 
be allowed, has employed the moral motives with greater 
effect, and displayed a more intimate acquaintance with the 
primary and fundamental principles of the human mind. 
Hence, in some of his pieces, he is more deeply affecting than 
either of the other two. 

The first and last only of these three great masters of the 



TEE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE CORNEILLE. 285 

Frencli tragic stage can be said to be fruitful writers ; and 
even these can hardly be accounted so, if compared with the 
Greeks. That Racine was not more prolific, was owing 
partly to accidental circumstances. He enjoys this advan- 
tage, however, that with the exception of his first youthful 
attempts, the whole of his pieces have kept possession of the 
stage, and the public estimation. But many of Corneille's 
and Voltaire's, even such as were popular at first, have been 
since withdrawn from the stage, and at present are not even 
so much as read. Accordingly, selections only from, their 
works, under the title of Ghef-cTceuvres, are now generally 
published. It is remarkable, that few only of the many 
French attempts in Tragedy have been successful. La Harpe 
reckons up nearly a thousand tragedies which have been 
acted or printed since the death of Racine ; aoid of these not 
more than thirty, besides those of Voltaire, have kept pos- 
session of the stage. Notwithstanding, therefore, the great 
competition in this department, the tragic treasures of the 
French are far from ample. Still we do not feel ourselves calied 
upon to give a full account even of these; and still farther is 
it from our purpose to enter into a circumstantial and anato- 
mical investigation of separate pieces. All that our limits 
will allow us is, with a rapid pen, to sketch the character and 
relative value of the principal works of those three masters, 
and a few others specially deserving of mention. 

Corneille brilliantly opened his career of fame with the Cid, 
of which, indeed, the execution alone is his own: in the plan he 
appears to have closely followed his Spanish original. As the 
Cid of Guillen de Castro has never fallen into my hands, 
it has been out of my power to institute an accurate com- 
parison between the two works. But if we may judge from 
the specimens produced, the Spanish piece seems written with 
far greater simplicity; and the subject owes to Corneille its 
rhetorical pomp of ornament. On the other hand, we are 
ignorant how much he has left out and sacrificed. All the 
French critics are agreed in thinking the part of the Infanta 
superfluous. They cannot see that by making a princess 
forget her elevated rank, and entertain a passion for Rod- 
rigo, the Spanish poet thereby distinguished him as the 
flower of noble and amiable knights ; and, on the other hand, 
furnished a strong justification of Chimene's love, which 
so many powerful motives could not overcome. It is true, 



284 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — CORNEILLE 

that to be attractive in themselves, and duly to aid the general 
effect, the Infanta's passion required to be set forth more 
musically, and Rodrigo's achievements against the Moors 
more especially, ■i.e., with greater vividness of detail: and pro- 
bably they were so in the Spanish original. The rapturous 
applause, which, on its first appearance, universally welcomed 
a piece like this, which, without the admixture of any ignoble 
incentive*, founded its attraction altogether on the represented 
conflict between the purest feelings of love, honour, and filial 
duty, is a strong proof that the romantic spirit was not 
yet extinct among spectators who were still open to such 
natural impressions. This Avas entirely misunderstood by 
the learned; with the Academy at their head, they affirmed 
that this subject (one of the most beautiful that ever fell 
to the lot of a poet) was unfit for Tragedy; incapable of 
entering historically into the spirit of another age, they made 
up improbabilities and improprieties for their censure*. The 
Cid is not certainly a^tragedy in the sense of the ancients ; and, 
at first, the poet himself called it a Tragi-comedy. Would 
that this had been the only occasion in which the authority 
of Aristotle has been applied to subjects which do not belong 
to his jurisdiction ! 

The Horatii has been censured for want of unity; the 
murder of the sister and the acquittal of the victorious Roman 
is said to be a second action, independent of the combat of the 
Horatii and Curiatii. Corneille himself was talked into a 
belief of it. He appears, however, to me fully justified in 
what he has done. If the murder of Camilla had not made a 
part of the piece, the female characters in the first act would 
have been superfluous; and without the triumph of patriotism 
over family ties, the combat could not have been an action, 
but merely an event destitute of all tragic complication. But 
the real defect, in my opinion, is Corneille representing a 
public act which decided the fate of two states, as taking 
place altogether intra privatos jmrietes, and stripping it of 
every visible pomp of circumstance. Hence the great flatness 
of the fifth act. What a different impression would have been 
produced had Horatius, in presence of the king and people, 

* Scuderi speaks even of Chimene as a monster, and off- hand dismisses 
the whole, as " ce mechant combat de V amour et de Vhonneur.'^ Excel- 
lent ! Surely he understood the romantic ! 



THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — CORNEILLE. 286 

been solemnly condemned, in obedience to the stern mandate 
of the law, and afterwards saved tlirougb the tears and la- 
mentations of his father, just as Livy describes it. Moreover, 
the poet, not satisfied with making, as the history does, one 
sister of the Horatii in love with one of the Curiatii, has 
thought proper to invent the marriage of a sister of the 
Curiatii with one of the Horatii : and as in the former the 
love of country yields to personal inclination, in the latter 
personal inclination yields to love of country. This gives 
rise to a great improbability : for is it likely that men would 
have been selected for the combat who, with a well-known 
family connexion of this kind, would have had the most power- 
ful inducements to spare one another? Besides, the con- 
queror's murder of his sister cannot be rendered even 
poetically tolerable, except by supposing him in all the boiling 
impetuosity of ungovernable youth. Horatius, already a hus- 
band, would have shown a wiser and milder forbearance to- 
wards his unfortunate sister's language ; else were he a 
ferocious savage. 

Cinna is commonly ranked much higher than The Horatii; 
although, as to purity of sentiment, there is here a perceptible 
falling off from that ideal sphere in which the action of the 
two preceding pieces moves. All is diversely complicated and 
diseased. Cinna's republicanism is merely the cloak of another 
passion : he is a tool in the hands of Emilia, who, on her part, 
constantly sacrifices her pretended love to her passion of 
revenge. The magnanimity of Augustus is ambiguous: it ap- 
pears rather the caution of a tyrant grown timid through age. 
The conspiracy is, with a splendid narration, thrust into the 
background; it does not excite in us that gloomy apprehen- 
sion which so theatrical an object ought to do. Emilia, the 
soul of the piece, is called by the witty Balzac, when com- 
mending the work, "an adorable fury." Yet the Furies 
themselves could be appeased by purifications and expiations : 
but Emilia's heart is inaccessible to the softening influences of 
benevolence and generosity; the adoration of so unfeminine 
a creature is hardly pardonable even in a lover. Hence she 
has no better adorers than Cinna and Maximus, two great 
villains, whose repentance comes too late to be thought 
sincere. 

Here we have the first specimen of that Machiavellism of 
motives, which subsequently disfigured the poetry of Corneille, 



286 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — CORNEILLE. 

iind which is not only repulsive, but also for the most part 
both clumsy and unsuitable. He flattered himself, that in 
knowledge of men and the world, in an acquaintance with 
courts and politics, he surpassed the most shrewd and clear- 
sighted observers. With a mind naturally alive to honour, 
he yet conceived the design of taking in hand the '' doctrine 
of the murderous Machiavelj" and displays, broadly and 
didactically, all the knowledge which he had acquired of these 
arts. He had no suspicion that a remorseless and selfish policy 
goes always smoothly to work, and dexterously disguises itself. 
Had he been really capable of anything of the kind;, he might 
have taken a lesson from Richelieu. 

Of the remaining pieces in which Corneille has painted the 
Roman love of liberty and conquest, the Death of Fomjjey is 
the most eminent. It is full, however, of a grandeur which is 
more dazzling than genuine; and, indeed, we could expect 
nothing else from a cento of Lucan's h}'perbolical antitheses. 
These bravuras of rhetoric are strung together on the thread 
of a clumsy plot. The intrigues of Ptolemy, and the ambi- 
tious coquetry of his sister Cleopatra, have a petty and 
miserable appearance alongside of the picture of the fate of 
the great Pompey, the vengeance-breathing sorrow of his wife, 
and the magnanimous compassion of Csesar. Scarcely has the 
conqueror paid the last honours to the reluctant shade of his 
rival, when he does homage at the feet of the beautiful queen; 
he is not only in love, but sighingly and ardently in love. Cleo- 
patra, on her part, according to the poet's own expression, is 
desirous, by her love-ogling, to gain the sceptre of her brother, 
Csesar certainly made love, in his own way, to a number of 
women : but these cynical loves, if represented with anything 
like truth, would be most unfit for the stage. Who can re- 
frain from laughing, when Rome, in the speech of Csesar, 
implores the chaste love of Cleopatra for young Caesar? 

In Sertoriiis, a much later work, Corneille has contriA^ed to 
make the great Pompey appear little, and the hero ridiculous. 
Sertorius on one occasion exclaims — ■ 

Que c'est un sort cruel d' aimer par politique ! 

This admits of being applied to all the personages of the piece. 
In love they are not in the least; but they allow a pretended 
love to be subservient to political ends. Sertorius, a hardy 
and hoary veteran, acts the lover with the Spanish Queen, 



THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — CORNEILLE. 287 

Viriata ; he brings forward, however, pretext after pretext, 
and offers himself the while to Aristia ; as Viriata presses him. 
to marry her on the spot, he begs anxiously for a short delay; 
Viriata, along with her other elegant phrases, says roundly, 
that she neither knows love nor hatred; Aristia, the repu- 
diated wife of Pompey, says to him, " Take me back again, 
or I will marry another;" Pompey beseeches her to wait only 
till the death of Sylla, whom he dare not offend : after this 
there is no need to mention the low scoundrel Perpenna. The 
tendency to this frigidity of soul was perceptible in Corneille, 
even at an early period of his career; but in the works of his 
old age it increased to an incredible degree. 

In Polyeucte, Christian sentiments are not unworthily 
expressed ; yet we find in it more superstitious reverence than 
fervent enthusiasm, for religion : the wonders of grace are 
rather affirmed, than embraced by a mysterious illumination. 
Both the tone and the situations in the first acts, incline 
greatly, as Voltaire observes, to comedy. A woman who, in 
obedience to her father, has married against her inclinations, 
and who declares both to her lover (who returns when too 
late) and to her husband, that " she still retains her first love, 
but that she will keep within the bounds of virtue ;" a vulgar 
and selfish father, who is sorry that he has not chosen for his 
son-in-law the first suitor, now become the favourite of the 
Emperor ; all this promises no very high tragical determina- 
tions. The divided heart of Paulina is in nature, and con- 
sequently does not detract from the interest of the piece. It 
is generally agreed that her situation, and the character ot 
Severus, constitute the principal charm of this drama. But 
the practical magnanimity of this Roman, in conquering his 
passion, throws Polyeucte's self-renunciation, which appears 
to cost him nothing, quite into the shade. From this a con- 
clusion has been partly drawn, that martyrdom is, in general, 
an unfavourable subject for Tragedy. But nothing can be 
more unjust than this inference. The cheerfulness with 
which martyrs embraced pain and death did not proceed from 
want of feeling, but frem the heroism of the highest love: 
they must previously, in struggles painful beyond expression, 
have obtained the victory over every earthly tie ; and by the 
exhibition of these struggles, of these sufierings of our mortal 
nature, while the seraj)h soars on its flight to heaven, the 
poet may awaken in us the most fervent emotion. In Poly- 



288 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — CORNEILLE. 

eucle, however, the means employed to bring about the 
catastrophe, namely, the dull and low artifice of Felix, by 
which the endeavours of Sever us to save his rival are made 
rather to contribute to his destruction, are inexpressibly con- 
temptible. 

How much Corneille delighted in the symmetrical and 
nicely balanced play of intrigue, we may see at once from 
his having pronounced Rodogune his favourite work. T shall 
content myself with referring to Lessing, who has exposed 
pleasantly enough the ridiculous appearance which the two 
distressed princes cut, between a mother who says, " He who 
murders his mistress I will name heir to my throne," and a 
mistress who says, " He who murders his mother shall be my 
husband." The best and shortest way of going to work would 
have been to have locked up the two furies together. As for 
Voltaire, he is always recurring to the fifth act, which he de- 
clares to be one of the noblest productions of the French stage. 
This singular way of judging works of art by piecemeal, 
which would praise the parts in distinction from the whole, 
without which it is impossible for the parts to exist, is 
altogether foreign to our way of thinking. 

With respect to Heraclius, Voltaire gives himself the un- 
necessary trouble of showing that Cakleron did not imitate 
Corneille ; and, on the other hand, he labours, with little suc- 
cess, to give a negative to the question whether the latter had 
the Spanish author before him, and availed himself of his 
labours. Corneille, it is true, gives out the whole as his own 
invention; but we must not forget, that only when hard 
pressed did he acknowledge how much he owed to the author 
of the Spanish Cid. The chief circumstance of the plot, 
namely, the uncertainty of the tyrant Phocas as to which of 
the two youths is his own son, or the son of his murdered 
predecessor, bears great resemblance to an incident in a drama 
of Calderon's, and nothing of the kind is to be found in 
history; in other respects the plot is, it is true, altogether 
difierent. However this may be, in Calderon the ingenious 
boldness of an extravagant invention is always preserved in 
due keeping by a deeper magic colouring of the poetry; 
whereas in Corneille, after our head has become giddy in 
endeavouring to disentangle a complicated and ill-contrived 
intrigue, we are recompensed by a succession of mere tragical 
epigrams, without the slightest recreation for the fancy. 



THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — RACINE. 289 

Nicomedes is a political comedjj the dryness of whicli is 
hardly in any degree relieved by the ironical tone which runs 
through the speeches of the hero. 

This is nearly all of Corneille's that now appears on the 
stage. His later works are, without exception, merely 
treatises or reasons of state in certain difficult conjunctures, 
dressed out in a pompous dialogical form. We might as well 
make a tragedy out of a game at chess. 

Those who have the patience to wade through the forgot- 
ten pieces of Corneille will perceive with astonishment that 
they are constructed on the same principles, and, with the 
exception of occasional negligences of style, executed with as 
much expenditure of what he considered art, as his admired 
productions. For example, Attila bears in its plot a striking 
resemblance to Rodogune. In his own judgments on his 
works, it is impossible not to be struck with the unessential 
nature of things on which he lays stress; all along he seems 
quite unconcerned about that Avhich is certainly the highest 
object of tragical composition, the laying open the depths of 
the mind and the destiny of man. For the unfavourable 
reception which he has so frequently to confess, his self-love 
can always find some excuse, some trifling circumstance to 
which the fate of his piece was to be attributed. 

In the two first youthful attempts of Racine, nothing 
deserves to be remarked, but the flexibility with which he 
accommodated himself to the limits fixed by Corneille to the 
career which he had opened. In the Andromache he first 
broke loose from them and became himself. He gave utter- 
ance to the inward struggles and inconsistencies of passion, 
with a truth and an energy which had never before been 
witnessed on the French stage. The fidelity of Andromache 
to the memory of her husband, and her maternal tenderness, 
are afiectingly beautiful : even the proud Hermione carries us 
along with her in her wild aberrations. Her aversion to 
Orestes, after he had made himself the instrument of her 
revenge, and her awaking from her blind fury to utter help- 
lessness and despair, may almost be called tragically grand. 
The male parts, as is generally the case with Racine, are not 
so advantageously drawn. The constantly repeated threat of 
Pyrrhus to deliver up Astyanax to death, if Andromache 
should not listen to him, with his gallant protestations, resem- 
bles the arts of an executioner, who applies the torture to his 

T 



290 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — RACINE. 

victim witli the most courtly phrases. It is difficult to think 
of Orestes, after his horrible deed, as a light-hearted and 
patient lover. Not the least mention is made of the murder 
of his mother ; he seems to have completely forgotten it the 
whole piece through ; whence, then, do the Furies come all at 
once at the end ? This is a singular contradiction. In short, 
the way in which the whole is connected together bears too 
great a resemblance to certain sports of children, where one 
always runs before and tries to surprise the other. 

In Britannicus, I have already praised the historical fidelity 
of the picture. Nero, Agrippina, Narcissus, and Burrhus, 
are so accurately sketched, and finished with such light 
touches and such delicate colouring, that, in respect to 
character, it yields, perhaps, to no French tragedy whatever. 
Racine has here possessed the art of giving us to understand 
much that is left unsaid, and enabling us to look forward into 
futurity. I will only notice one inconsistency which has 
escaped the poet. He would paint to us the cruel voluptuary, 
whom education has only in appearance tamed, breaking 
loose from the restraints of discipline and virtue. And yet, 
at the close of the fourth act, Narcissus speaks as if he had 
even then exhibited himself before the people as a player and 
a charioteer. But it was not until he had been hardened by 
the commission of grave crimes that he sunk to this ignominy. 
To represent the perfect Nero, that is, the flattering and 
cowardly tyrant, in the same person with the vain and fan- 
tastical being who, as poet, singer, player, and almost as 
juggler, was desirous of admiration, and in the agony of death 
even recited verses from Homer, was compatible only with a 
mixed drama, in which tragical dignity is not required 
throughout. 

To Berenice, composed in honour of a virtuous princess, the 
French critics generally seem to me extremely unjust. It is 
an idyllic tragedy, no doubt; but it is full of mental tender- 
ness. No one was better skilled than Eacine in throwing a 
veil of dignity over female weakness. — Who doubts that 
Berenice has long yielded to Titus every proof of her tender- 
ness, however carefully it may be veiled over 1 She is like 
a Magdalena of Guide, who languishingly repents of her 
repentance. The chief error of the piece is the tiresome 
part of Antiochus. 

On the first representation of Bajazet, Corneille, it seems. 



THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE RACINE. 291 

was heard to say, '• These Turks are very much Frenchified." 
The censure, as is well known, attaches j)rincipally to the 
parts of Bajazet and Atalide. The old Grand Vizier is cer- 
tainly Turkish enough; and were a Sultana ever to become 
the Sultan, she would perhaps throw the handkerchief in the 
same Sultanic manner as the disgusting Eoxane. I have 
already observed that Turkey, in its naked rudeness, hardly 
admits of representation before a cultivated public. Racine 
felt this, and merely refined the forms without changing the 
main incidents. The mutes and the strangling were motives 
which in a seraglio could hardly be dispensed with ; and so 
he gives, on several occasions, very elegant circumlocutory 
descriptions of strangling. This is, however, inconsistent; 
when people are so familiar with the idea of a thing, they 
usually call it also by its true name. 

The intrigue of Mithridate, as Voltaire has remarked, bears 
great resemblance to that of the Miser of IVIoliere. Two bro- 
thers are rivals for the bride of their father, who cunningly 
extorts from her the name of her favoured lover, by feigning 
a wish to renounce in his favour. The confusion of both 
sons, when they learn that their father, whom they had be- 
lieved dead, is still alive, and will speedily make his appear- 
ance, is in reality exceedingly comic. The one calls out: 
QiCavons nous fait? This is just the alarm of school-boys, 
conscious of some impropriety, on the unexpected entrance of 
their master. The political scene, where Mithridates consults 
his sons respecting his grand project of conquering Rome, and in 
which Racine successfully competes with Corneille, is no doubt 
logically interwoven in the general plan ; but still it is un- 
suitable to the tone of the whole, and the impression which 
it is intended to produce. All the interest is centred in 
Monime : she is one of Racine's most amiable creations, and 
excites in us a tender commiseration. 

On no work of this poet will the sentence of German 
readers difi*er more from that of the French critics and their 
whole public, than on the lyliigenie. — Voltaire declares it the 
tragedy of all times and all nations, which approaches as near 
to perfection as human essays can ; and in this opinion he is 
universally followed by his countrymen. But we see in it 
only a modernised Greek tragedy, of which the manners are 
inconsistent with the mythological traditions, its simplicity 
destroyed by the intriguing Eriphile, and in which the amo- 

t2 



292 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE RACINE. 

rous Achilles, liowever brave in other respects his behaviour 
may be, is altogether insupportable. La Harpe affirms that 
the Achilles of Racine is even more Homeric than that of 
Euripides. What shall we say to this ? Before acquiescing 
in the sentences of such critics^ we must first forget the 
Greeks. 

Respecting Phedre I may express myseK with the greater 
brevity, as I have already dedicated a separate Treatise to that 
tragedy. However much Racine may have borrowed from 
Euripides and Seneca, and however he may have spoiled the 
former without improving the latter, still it is a great advance 
from the affected mannerism of his age to a more genuine tra- 
gic style. When we compare it with the Phcedra of Pradon, 
which was so well received by his contemporaries for no other 
reason than because no trace whatever of antiquity was dis- 
cernible in it, but every thing reduced to the scale of a modem 
miniature portrait for a toilette, we must entertain a higher 
admiration of the poet who had so strong a feeling for the ex- 
cellence of the ancient poets, and the courage to attach him- 
self to them, and dared, in an age of vitiated and unnatural 
taste, to display so much purity and unaffected simplicity. 
If Racine actually said, that the only difference between his 
Phcedra and that of Pradon was, that he knew how to write, 
he did himself the most crying injustice, and must have al- 
lowed himself to be blinded by the miserable doctrine of his 
friend Boileau, which made the essence of poetry to consist in 
diction and versification, instead of the display of imagina- 
tion and fancy. 

Racine's last two pieces belong, as is well known, to a very 
different epoch of his life i they were both written at the same 
instigation ; but are extremely dissimilar to each other. Esther 
scarcely deserves the name of a tragedy; written for the 
entertainment of well-bred young women in a pious seminary, 
it does not rise much higher than its purpose. It had, how- 
ever, an astonishing success. The invitation to the repre- 
sentations in St. Cyr was looked upoL as a court favour; 
flattery and scandal delighted to discover allusions throughout 
the piece; Ahasuerus was said to represent Louis XIV; 
Esther, Madame de Maintenon; the proud Vasti, who is only 
incidentally alluded to, Madame de Montespan ; and Haman, 
the Minister Louvois. This is certainly rather a profane 
application of the sacred history, if we can suppose the poet 



THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE RACINE. 293 

to liaye iiad any such object in view. In Athalie, however, 
the poet exhibited himself for the last time, before taking 
leave of poetry and the world, in his whole strength. It is 
not only his most finished work, but, I have no hesitation in 
declaring it to be, of all French tragedies the one which, free 
from all mannerism, approaches the nearest to the grand style 
of the Greeks. The chorus is conceived fully in the ancient 
sense, though introduced in a different manner in order to 
suit our music, and the different arrangement of our theatre. 
The scene has all the majesty of a public action. Expecta- 
tion, emotion, and keen agitation succeed each other, and 
continually rise with the progress of the drama : with a severe 
abstinence from all foreign matter, there is still a display of 
the richest variety, sometimes of sweetness, but more fre- 
quently of majesty and grandeur. The inspiration of the 
.prophet elevates the fancy to flights of more than usual bold- 
ness. Its import is exactly what that of a religious drama 
ought to be : on earth, the struggle between good and evil ; 
and in heaven the wakeful eye of providence beaming, from 
unapproachable glory, rays of constancy and resolution. All 
is animated by one breath — the poet's pious enthusiasm, of 
whose sincerity neither his life nor the work itself allow us a 
moment to doubt. This is the very point in which so many 
French works of art with their great pretensions are, never- 
theless, deficient : their authors were not inspired by a fervent 
love of their subject, but by the desire of external effect : 
and hence the vanity of the artist is continually breaking 
forth to throw a damp over our feelings. 

The unfortunate fate of this piece is well known. Scruples 
of conscience as to the propriety of all theatrical representa- 
tions (which appear to be exclusively entertained by the Gal- 
ilean church, for both in Italy and Spain men of religion and 
piety have thought very differently on this subject,) prevented 
the representacion in St. Cyr; it appeared in print, and was 
universally abused and reprobated ; and this reprobation of it 
long survived its author. So incapable of every thing serious 
was the puerile taste of the age. 

Among the poets of this period, the younger Corneille 
deserves to be mentioned, Vvdio did not seek, like his brother, 
to excite astonishment by pictures of heroism so much as 
to win the favour of the spectators by " those tendernesses 
which," to use the words of Pradon, " are so agreeable.'' Of 



294 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — CREBILLON. 

his numerous tragedies, two, only the Comte d' Essex and 
A riadne, keep possession of the stage ; the rest are consigned 
to obliyion. The latter of the two, composed after the model 
of Berenice, is a tragedy of which the catastrophe may, pro- 
perly speaking, be said to consist in a swoon. The situation 
of the resigned and enamoured Ariadne, who, after all her 
sacrifices, sees herself abandoned by Theseus and betrayed 
by her own sister, is expressed with great truth of feeling. 
Wheneyer an actress of an engaging figure, and with a sweet 
Yoice, appears in this character, she is sure to excite our inte- 
rest. The other parts, the cold and deceitful Theseus, the 
intriguing Phasdra, who continues to the last her deception of 
her confiding sister, the pandering Pirithous, and King GEnarus, 
who instantly ofi'ers himself in the place of the faithless lover, 
are all pitiful in the extreme, and frequently even laughable. 
Moreover, the desert rocks of Naxos are here smoothed down 
to modern drawing-rooms ; and the princes who people them, 
with all the observances of politeness seek to out-wit each 
other, or to beguile the unfortunate princess, who alone 
has anything like pretensions to nature. 

Crebillon, in point of time, comes between Racine and Vol- 
taire, though he was also the rival of the latter. A numerous 
party wished to set him, when far advanced in years, on a par 
with, nay, even to rank him far higher than, Voltaire. No- 
thing, however, but the bitterest rancour of party, or the 
utmost depravity of taste, or, what is most probable, the two 
together, could have led them to such signal injustice. Far 
from having contributed to the purification of the tragic art, 
he evidently attached himself, not to the better, but the more 
afi'ected authors of the age of Louis the Fourteenth. In his 
total ignorance of the ancients, he has the arrogance to rank 
himself abo re them. His favourite books were the antiquated 
romances of a Calprenede, and others of a similar stamp: 
from these he derived his extravagant and ill-connected plots. 
One of the means to which he everywhere has recourse, is the 
unconscious or intentional disguise of the principal characters 
under other names; the first example of which was given 
in the Heraclius. Thus, in Crebillon's Electra, Orestes does 
not become known to himself before the middle of the piece. 
The brother and sister, and a son and daughter of .zEgisthus, 
are almost exclusively occupied with their double amours, 
which neither contribute to, nor injure, the main action; and 



THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE VOLTAIRE. 295 

Clytemnestra is killed by a blow from Orestes, wliich, without 
knowing lier, lie unintentionally and involuntarily inflicts. He 
abounds in extravagances of every kind; of such, for instance, 
as the shameless impudence of Semiramis, in persisting in her 
love after she has learnt that its object is her own son. A 
few empty ravings and common-place displays of terror, have 
gained for Crebillon the appellation of the terrible, which 
ajffords us a standard for judging of the barbarous and affected 
taste of the age, and the infinite distance from nature and 
truth to which it had fallen. It is pretty much the same 
as, in painting, to give the appellation of the majestic to 
Coypel. 



LECTURE XX. 

Voltaire — Tragedies on Greek Subjects : CEdipe, Merope, Oreste — Tra- 
gedies on Roman Subjects : Brute, Morte de Cesar, Catiline, Le 
Triumvirat — Eax-lier Pieces : Zaire, Alzire, Mahomet, Semiramis, 
and Tancred. 

To Voltaire, from his first entrance on his dramatic career, 
we must give credit both for a conviction that higher and 
more extensive efforts remained to be made, and for the zeal 
necessary to accomplish all that was yet undone. How far 
he was successful, and how much he was himself blinded by 
the very national prejudices against which he contended, is 
another question. For the more easy review of his works, it 
will be useful to class together the pieces in which he handled 
mythological materials, and those which he derived from the 
Roman history. 

His earliest tragedy, Q^di2M, is a mixture of adherence to 
the Greeks* (with the proviso, however, as may be supposed, 
of improving on them,) and of compliance with the prevailing 

* His admiration of them seems to have been more derived from foreign 
influence than from personal study. In his letter to the Duchess of Maine, 
prefixed to Oreste, lie relates how, in his early youth, he had access to a 
noble house where it was a custom to read Sophocles, and to make extem- 
poraiy translations from him, and where there were men who acknowledged 
the superiority of the Greek Theatre over the French. In vain, in the 
present day, should we seek for such men in France, among people of any 
distinction, so universally is the study of the classics depreciated. 



296 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — VOLTAIRE. 

manner. The best feature of this work Voltaire owed to 
Sophocles^ whom he nevertheless slanders in his preface ; and 
in comparison with whose catastrophe his own is flat in 
the extreme. Not a little, however, was borrowed from the 
frigid CEdipus of Corneille; and more especially the love of 
Philoctetus for Jocaste, which may be said to correspond 
nearly with that of Theseus and Dirce in Corneille. Voltaire 
alleged in his defence the tyranny of the players, from which 
a young and unknown writer cannot emancipate himself. 
We may notice the frequent allusions to priestcraft, supersti- 
tion, &c., which, even at that early period betray the future 
direction of his mind. 

The Merope, a work of his ripest years, was intended as a 
perfect revival of Greek tragedy, an undertaking of so great 
difficulty, and so long announced with every note of prepa- 
ration. Its real merit is the exclusion of the customary love- 
scenes (of which, however, Racine had already given an ex- 
ample in the Athalie) ; for in other respects German readers 
hardly need to be told how much is not conceived in the true 
Grecian spirit. Moreover the confidants are also entirely 
after the old traditional cut. The other depots of the piece 
have been circumstantially, and, I might almost say, too 
severely, censured by Lessing. The tragedy of Mero'pe, if 
well acted, can hardly fail of being received with a certain 
degree of favour. This is owing to the nature of its subject. 
The passionate love of a mother, who, in dread of losing her 
only treasure, and threatened with cruel oppression, still sup- 
ports her trials with heroic constancy, and at last triumphs 
over them, is altogether a picture of such truth and beauty, 
that the sympathy it awakens is beneficent, and remains 
pure from every painful ingredient. Still we must not forget 
that the piece belongs only in a very small measure to Vol- 
taire. How much he has borrowed from MafFei, and changed 
— not always for the better — has been already pointed out by 
Lessing. 

Of all remodellings of Greek tragedies, Oreste, the latest, 
appears the farthest from the antique simplicity and severity, 
although it is free from any mixture of love-making, and all 
mere confidants are excluded. That Orestes should under- 
take to destroy ^gisthus is nowise singular, and seems 
scarcely to merit such marked notice in the tragical annals 
of the world. It is the case which Aristotle lays down as 



CONCLUDING REVIEW OF HIS WORKS. 297 

the most indifferent, where one enemy knowingly attacks the 
other. And in Voltaire's play neither Orestes nor Electra 
have anything beyond this in view: Clytemnestra is to be 
spared; no oracle consigns to her own son the execution of 
the punishment due to her guilt. But even the deed in 
question can hardly be said to be executed by Orestes him- 
self: he goes to j^gisthus, and falls, simply enough it must 
be owned, into the net, and is only saved by an insurrection 
of the people. According to the aucients, the oracle had com- 
manded him to attack the criminals with cunning, as they had 
so attacked Agamemnon. This was a just retaliation : to fall 
in open conflict would have been too honourable a death for 
-^gisthus. Voltaire has added, of his own invention, that he 
was also prohibited by the oracle from making himself known 
to his sister; and when carried away by fraternal love, he 
breaks this injunction, he is blinded by the Furies, and invo- 
luntarily perpetrates the deed of matricide. These certainly 
are singular ideas to assign to the gods, and a most unex- 
ampled punishment for a slight, nay, even a, noble crime. 
The accidental and unintentional stabbing of Clytemnestra 
was borrowed from Crebillon. A French writer will hardly 
venture to represent this subject with mythological truth ; to 
describe, for instance, the murder as intentional, and executed 
by the command of the gods. If Clytemnestra were depicted 
not as rejoicing in the success of her crime, but repentant and 
softened by maternal love, then, it is true, her death would 
no longer be supportable. But how does this apply to so 
premeditated a crime? By such a transition to littleness the 
whole profound significance of the dreadful example is lost. 

As the French are in general better acquainted with the 
Romans than the Greeks, we might expect the Roman pieces 
of Voltaire to be more consistent, in a political point of view, 
with historical truth, than his Greek pieces are with the 
symbolical original of mythology. This is, however, the case 
only in Brutus, the earliest of them, and the only one which 
can be said to be sensibly planned. Voltaire sketched this 
tragedy in England; he had there learned from Julius Coesar 
the effect which the publicity of Republican transactions is 
capable of producing on the stage, and he wished therefore to 
hold something like a middle course between Corneille and 
Shakspeare. The first act opens majestically; the catas- 
trophe is brief but striking, and throughout the principles of 



298 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — VOLTAIRE. 

genuine freedom are pronounced with a grave and noble elo- 
quence. Brutus himself, his son Titus, the ambassador of the 
king, and the chief of the conspirators, are admirably depicted. 
I am by no means disposed to censure the introduction of love 
into this play. The passion of Titus for a daughter of Tar- 
quin, which constitutes the knot, is not improbable, and in its 
tone harmonizes with the manners which are depicted. Still 
less am I disposed to agree with La Harpe, when he says that 
TuUia, to afford a fitting counterpoise to the republican vir- 
tues, ought to utter proud and heroic sentiments, like Emilia 
in Cinna. By what means can a noble youth be more easily 
seduced than by female tenderness and modesty? It is not, 
generally speaking, natural that a being like Emilia should 
ever inspire love. 

The Mort de Cesar is a mutilated tragedy : it ends with 
the speech of Antony over the dead body of Csesar, borrowed 
from Shakspeare; that is to say, it has no conclusion. And 
what a patched and bungling thing is it in all its j^arts ! How 
coarse-spun and hurried is the conspiracy! How stupid 
Caesar must have been, to allow the conspirators to brave him 
before his face without suspecting their design ! That Brutus, 
although he knew Csesar to be his father, nay, immediately 
after this fact had come to his knowledge, should lay murder- 
ous hands on him, is cruel, and, at the same time, most 
un-Roman. History affords us many examples of fathers in 
Rome who condemned their own sons to death for crimes of 
state; the law gave fathers an unlimited power of life and 
death over their children in their own houses. But the mur- 
der of a father, though perpetrated in the cause of liberty, 
would, in the eyes of the Romans, have stamped the parricide 
an unnatural monster. The inconsistencies which here arise 
from the attempt to observe the unity of place, are obvious to 
the least discerning eye. The scene is laid in the Capitol; 
here the conspiracy is hatched in the clear light of day, and 
Csssar the while goes in and out among them. But the 
persons, themselves, do not seem to know rightly where they 
are; for Cassar on one occasion exclaims, " Courons an 
Capitole r 

The same improprieties are repeated in Catiline, which is 
but a little better than the preceding piece. From Voltaire's 
sentiments respecting the dramatic exhibition of a conspiracy, 
which I quoted in the foregoing Lecture, we might well con- 



CONCLUDING REVIEW OF HIS WORKS. 299 

elude that lie had not himself a right understanding on this 
head3 were it not quite evident that the French system 
rendered a true representation of such transactions all 
but impossible, not only by the required observance of the 
Unities of Place and Time, but also on account of a demand 
for dignity of poetical expression, such as is quite incom- 
patible with the accurate mention of particular circumstances, 
on which, however, in this case depends the truthfulness of 
the whole. The machinations of a conspiracy, and the en- 
deavours to frustrate them, are like the underground mine 
and counter-mine, with which the besiegers and the besieged 
endeavour to blow up each other. — Something must be done 
to enable the spectators to comprehend the art of the miners. 
If Catiline and his adherents had employed no more art and 
dissimulation, and Cicero no more determined wisdom, than 
Voltaire has given them, the one could not have endangered 
Rome, and the other could not have saved it. The piece 
turns always on the same point; they all declaim against 
each other, but no one acts; and at the conclusion, the affair 
is decided as if by accident, by » the blind chance of war. 
When we read the simple relation of Sallust, it has the 
appearance of the genuine poetry of the matter, and Vol- 
taire's work hj the side of it looks like a piece of school 
rhetoric. Ben Jonson has treated the subject with a very 
different insight into the true connexion of human affairs; 
and Voltaire might have learned a great deal from the man 
in traducing whom he did not spare even falsehood. 

The Triumvirat belongs to the acknowledged unsuccessful 
essays of his old age. It consists of endless declamations on 
the subject of proscription, which are poorly supported by a 
mere show of action. Here we find the Triumvirs quietly 
sitting in their tents on an island in the small river Rhenus, 
while storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes rage around them; 
and Julia and the young Pompeius, although they are travel- 
ling on terra firma, are depicted as if they had been just 
shipwrecked on the strand ; besides a number of other absur- 
dities. Voltaire, probably by way of apology for the poor 
success which the piece had on its representation, says, "This 
piece is perhaps in the English taste." — Heaven forbid ! 

We return to the earlier tragedies of Voltaire, in which he 
brought on the stage subjects never before attempted, and on 



800 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE — VOLTAIRE. 

whicli his fame as a dramatic poet principally rests : Zaire, 
Alzire, MaJtomet, Semiramis, and Tancred. 

Zaire is considered in France as the triumph of tragic 
poetry in the representation of love and jealousy. We will 
not assert with Lessing, that Voltaire was acquainted only 
with the legal style of love. He often expresses feeling with 
a fiery energy, if not with that familiar truth and naivete in 
which an unreserved heart lays itself oj)en. But I see no 
trace of an oriental colouring in Zaire's cast of feeling : 
educated in the seraglio, she should cling to the object of her 
passion with all the fervour of a maiden of a glowing imagi- 
nation, rioting, as it were, in the fragrant perfumes of the 
East. Her fanciless love dwells solely in the heart; and 
again how is this conceivable with such a character 1 Oros- 
man, on his part, lays claim indeed to European tenderness 
of feeling j but in him the Tartar is merely varnished over, 
and he has frequent relapses into the ungovernable fury and 
despotic habits of his race. The poet ought at least to have 
given a credibility to the magnanimity which he ascribes to 
him, by investing him with a celebrated historical name, 
such as that of the Saracen monarch Saladin, well known 
for his nobleness and liberality of sentiment. But all our 
sympathy inclines to the oppressed Christian and chivalrous 
side, and the glorious names to which it is appropriated. 
What can be more affecting than the royal martyr Lusignan, 
the upright and pious Ncrestan, who, though in the fire of 
youth, has no heart for deeds of bloody enterprise except 
to redeem the associates of his faith 1 The scenes in which 
these two characters appear are uniformly excellent, and 
more particularly the whole of the second act. The idea of 
connecting the discovery of a daughter with her conversion 
can ncA^er be sufficiently praised. But, in my opinion, the 
great efiect of this act is injurious to the rest of the piece. 
Does any person seriously wish the union of Zaire with Oros- 
man, except lady spectators flattered with the homage which 
is paid to beauty, or those of the male part of the audience 
who are still entangled in the follies of youth ? Who else 
can go along with the poet, when Zaire's love for the Sultan, 
so ill-justified by his acts, balances in her soul the voice of 
blood, and the most sacred claims of filial duty, honour, and 
religion ? 



CONCLUDING REVIEW OP HIS WORKS. 301 

It was a praise worthy daring (such, singular prejudices 
then prevailed in France) to exhibit French heroes in Zaire. 
In Alzire Voltaire went still farther, and treated a subject in 
modern history never yet touched by his countrymen. In 
the former piece he contrasted the chivalrous and Saracenic 
way of thinking; in this we have Spaniards opposed to 
Peruvians. The difference between the old and new world 
has given rise to descriptions of a truly poetical nature. 
Though the action is a pure invention, I recognise in this 
piece more historical and more of what we may call sym- 
bolical truth, than in most French tragedies. Zamor is a 
representation of the savage in his free, and Monteze in his 
subdued state; Guzman, of the arrogance of the conqueror; 
and Alvarez, of the mild influence of Christianity. Alzire 
remains between these conflicting elements in an affecting 
struggle betwixt attachment to her country, its manners, and 
the first choice of her heart, on the one part, and new ties of 
honour and duty on the other. All the human motives speak 
in favour of Alzire's love, which were against the passion of 
Zaire. The last scene, where the dying Guzman is dragged 
in, is beneficently overpowering. The noble lines on the 
difference of their religions, by which Zamor is converted by 
Guzman, are borrowed from an event in history: they are 
the words of the Duke of Guise to a Huguenot who wished 
to kill him ; but the glory of the poet is not therefore less in 
applying them as he has done. In short, notwithstanding 
the improbabilities in the plot, which are easily discovered, 
and have often been censured, Alzire appears to be the most 
fortunate attempt, and the most finished of all Voltaire's com- 
positions. 

In Mahomet, want of true singleness of purjjose has fear- 
fully avenged itself on the artist. He may aflirm as much as 
he pleases that his aim was directed solely against fanati- 
cism; there can be no doubt that he wished to overthrow the 
belief in revelation altogether, and that for that object he 
considered every means allowable. We have thus a work 
which is productive of effect; but an alarmingly painful 
effect, equally repugnant to humanity, philosophy, and reli- 
gious feeling. The Mahomet of Voltaire makes two innocent 
young persons, a brother and sister, who, with a childlike 
reverence, adore him as a messenger from God, unconsciously 
murder their own father, and this from the motives of an 



302 THE FRENCH TRAGIC THEATRE VOLTAIRE. 

incestuous love in whicli, by liis allowance, they had also 
become unknowingly entangled; the brother, after he has 
blindly executed his horrible mission, he rewards with poison, 
and the sister he reserves for the gratification of his own vile 
lust. This tissue of atrocities, this cold-blooded delight in 
wickedness, exceeds perhaps the measure of human nature; 
but, at all events, it exceeds the bounds of poetic exhibition, 
even though such a monster should ever have appeared in the 
course of ages. But, overlooking this, what a disfigurement, 
nay, distortion, of history ! He has stripped her, too, of her 
wonderful charms ; not a trace of oriental colouring is to be 
found. Mahomet was a false prophet, but one certainly 
under the inspiration of enthusiasm, otherwise he would never 
by his doctrine have revolutionized the half of the world. 
What an absurdity to make him merely a cool deceiver! 
One alone of the many sublime maxims of the Koran would 
be sufficient to annihilate the whole of these incongruous 
inTentions. 

Semiramis is a motley patchwork of the French manner 
and mistaken imitations. It has something of Hamlet, and 
something of Clytemnestra and Orestes; but nothing of any of 
them as it ought to be. The passion for an unknown son is 
borrowed from the Semiramis of Crebillon. The appearance 
of Ninus is a mixture of the Ghost in Hamlet and the shadow 
of Darius in ^schylus. That it is superfluous has been 
admitted even by the French critics. Lessing, with his rail- 
lery, has scared away the Ghost. With a great many faults 
common to ordinary ghost-scenes, it has this peculiar one, 
that its speeches are dreadfully bombastic. Notwithstauding 
the great zeal displayed by Voltaire against subordinate love 
intrigues in tragedy, he has, however, contrived to exhibit 
two pairs of lovers, the partie carree as it is called, in this 
play, which was to be the foundation of an entirely new 
species. 

Since the Cid, no French tragedy had appeared of which 
the plot was founded on such pure motives of honour and love 
without any ignoble intermixtures, and so completely conse- 
crated to the exhibition of chivalrous sentiments, as Tancred. 
Amenaide, though honour and life are at stake, disdains to 
exculpate herself by a declaration which would endanger her 
lover; and Tancred, though justified in esteeming her faith- 
less, defends her in single combat, and, in despair, is about to 



CONCLUDING REVIEW OF HIS WORKS. 303 

seek a hero's death, when the unfortunate mistake is cleared 
up. So far the piece is irreproachable, and deserving of the 
greatest praise. But it is weakened by other imperfections. 
It is of great detriment to its perspicuity, that we are not at 
the very first allowed to hear the letter without superscription 
which occasions all the embarrassment, and that it is not sent 
off before our eyes. The political disquisitions in the first act 
are extremely tedious; Tancred does not appear till the third 
act, though his presence is impatiently looked for, to give ani- 
mation to the scene. The furious imprecations of Amenaide, 
at the conclusion, are not in harmony with the deep but soft 
emotion with which we are overpowered by the reconciliation 
of the two lovers, whose hearts, after so long a mutual mis- 
understanding, are reunited in the moment of separation by 
death. 

In the earlier piece of the Orphelin de la Chine, it might 
be considered pardonable if Voltaire represented the great 
Dschingis-kan in love. This drama ought to be entitled The 
Conquest of China, with the conversion of the cruel Khan 
of Tartary, &c. Its whole interest is concentrated in two 
children, who are never once seen. The Chinese are repre- 
sented as the most wise and virtuous of mankind, and they 
overflow with philosophical maxims. As Corneille, in his old 
age, made one and all of his characters politicians, Voltaire in 
like manner furnished his out with philosophy, and availed 
himself of them to preach up his favourite opinions. He was 
not deterred by the example of Corneille, when the power of 
representing the passions was extinct, from publishing a host 
of weak and faulty productions. 

Since the time of Voltaire the constitution of the French 
stage has remained nearly the same. No genius has yet 
arisen sufficiently mighty to advance the art a step farther, 
and victoriously to refute, by success, their time-strengthened 
prejudices. Many attempts have been made, but they gene- 
rally follow in the track of previous essays, without sur- 
passing them. The endeavour to introduce more historical 
extent into dramatic composition is frustrated by the tra- 
ditional limitations and restraints. The attacks, both theo- 
retical and practical, which have been made in France itself 
on the prevailing system of rules, will be most suitably 
noticed and observed upon when we come to review the 
present condition of the French stage, after considering their 



304 SUBSEQUENT CONSTITUTION OF THE FRENCH STAGE. 

Comedy and the other secondary kinds of dramatic works, 
since in these attempts have been made either to found new 
species, or arbitrarily to oyerturn the classification hitherto 
established. 



LECTURE XXI. 

French Comedy — Moliere — Criticism of Ms Works — Scarron, Boursault, 
Regnard ; Comedies in the Time of the Regency ; Marivaux and Des- 
touches ; Piron and Gresset — Later Attempts — The Heroic Opera : 
Qninault — Operettes and Vaudevilles — Diderot's attempted Change of 
the Theatre — The Weeping Drama — Beaumarchais — Melo-Dramas — 
Merits and Defects of the Histrionic Ait. 

The same system of rules and proprieties, which, as I have 
endeavoured to show, must inevitably have a narrowing influ- 
ence on Tragedy, has, in France, been applied to Comedy much 
more advantageously. For this mixed species of composition 
has, as already seen, an unpoetical side; and some degree of 
artificial constraint, if not altogether essential to Comedy, is 
certainly beneficial to it; for if it is treated with too negli- 
gent a latitude, it runs a risk, in respect of general structure, 
of falling into shapelessness, and in the representation of indi- 
vidual peculiarities, of sinking into every-day common-place. 
In the French, as well as in the Greek, it happens that the 
same syllabic measure is used in Tragedy and Comedy, which, 
on a first Anew, may appear singular. But if the Alexandrine 
did not appear to us peculiarly adapted to the free imitative 
expression of pathos, on the other hand, it must be owned that 
a comical efi'ect is produced by the application of so symme- 
trical a measure to the familiar turns of dialogue. Moreover, 
the grammatical conscientiousness of French poetry, which is so 
greatly injurious in other species of the drama, is fully suited 
to Comedy, where the versification is not purchased at the 
expense of resemblance to the language of conversation, where 
it is not intended to elevate the dialogue by sublimity and 
dignity above real life, but merely to communicate to it 
greater ease and lightness. Hence the opinion of the French, 
who hold a comedy in verse in much higher estimation than a 
comedy in prose, seems to me to admit fairly of a justification. 




FRENCH COMEDY. 305 

I endeavoured to show that tlie Unities of Place and Time 
are inconsistent with the essence of many tragical subjects, 
because a comprehensive action is frequently carried on in 
distant places at the same time, and because great determina- 
tions can only be slowly prepared. This is not the case in 
Comedy: here Intrigue ought to prevail, the active spirit of 
which quickly hurries towards its object; and hence the unity 
of time may here be almost naturally observed. The domestic 
and social circles in which Comedy moves are usually assem- 
bled in one place, and, consequently, the poet is not under the 
necessity of sending our imagination abroad: only it might 
perhaps have been as well not to interpret the unity of place 
so very strictly as not to allow the transition from one room 
to another, or to different houses of the same town. The 
choice of the street for the scene, a practice in which the 
Latin comic writers were frequently followed in the earlier 
times of Modern Comedy, is quite irreconcileable with our way 
of living, and the more deserving of censure, as in the case of 
. the ancients it was an inconvenience which arose from the 
construction of their theatre. 

According to French critics, and the opinion which has 
become prevalent through them, Moliere alone, of all their 
comic writers, is classical; and all that has been done since 
his time is merely estimated as it approximates more or less 
to this supposed pattern of an excellence which can never be 
surpassed, nor even equalled. Hence we shall first proceed to 
characterize this founder of the French Comedy, and then 
give a short sketch of its subsequent progress. 

Moliere has produced works in so many departments, and 
of such different value, that we are hardly able to recognize 
the same author in all of them; and yet it is usual, when 
speaking of his peculiarities and merits, and the advance 
which he gave to his art, to throw the whole of his labours 
into one mass together. 

Born and educated in an inferior rank of life, he enjoyed 
the advantage of learning by direct experience the modes of 
living among the industrious portion of the community — the 
8o-csi\\ed JSourgeois class — and of acquiring the talent of imi- 
tating low modes of expression. At an after period, when 
Louis XiV. took him into his service, he had opportunities, 
although from a subordinate station, of narrowly observing 
the court. He was an actor, and, it would appear, of pecu- 

u 



306 FRENCH C03IEDY — MOLIERE. 

liar power In overcharged and farcical comic parts; so little 
was he possessed with prejudices of personal dignity, that ho 
renounced all the conditions by which it was accompanied, 
and was ever ready to deal out, or to receive the blows which 
were then so frequent on the stage. Nay, his mimetic zeal went 
so far, that, actually sick, he acted and drew his last breath in 
representing his Imaginary Invalid {Le Malade Imaginaire), 
and became, in the truest sense, a martyr to the laughter of 
others. His business was to invent all manner of pleasant 
entertainments for the court, and to provoke '' the greatest 
monarch of the world" to laughter, by way of relaxation from 
his state affairs or warlike undertakings. One would think, 
on the triumphant return from a glorious campaign, this, 
might have been accomplished with more refinement than by 
the representation of the disgusting state of an imaginary 
invalid. But Louis XIV. was not so fastidious; he was very 
well content with the buffoon whom he protected, and even 
occasionally exhibited his own elevated person in the dances 
of his ballets. This external position of Moliere was the 
cause why many of his labours had their origin as mere occa- 
sional pieces in the commands of the court. And, accordingly^ 
they bear the stamp of that origin. Without travelling out 
of France, he had opportunities of becoming acquainted with 
the lazzis of the Italian comic masks on the Italian theatre 
at Paris, where improvisatory dialogues were intermixed 
with scenes written in French : in the Spanish comedies he 
studied the ingenious complications of intrigue : Plautus and 
Terence taught him the salt of the Attic wit, the genuine tone 
of comic maxims, and the nicer shades of character. All this 
he employed, with more or less success, in the exigency of the 
moment, and also in order to deck out his drama in a sprightly 
and variegated dress, made use of all manner of means, 
however foreign to his art : such as the allegorical opening 
scenes of the opera prologues, musical intermezzos, in which 
he even introduced Italian and Spanish national music, with 
texts in their own language; ballets, at one time sumptuous, 
and at another grotesque; and even sometimes mere vaulting 
and capering. He knew how to turn everything to profit: 
the censure passed upon his pieces, the defects of rival actors 
imitated to the life by himself and his company, and even the 
embarrassment in not being able co produce a theatrical enter- 
tainment as quickly as it was required by the king, — all became 



FRENCH COMEDY — MOLIERE. 307 

for him a matter for amusement. The pieces lie borrowed 
from the Spanish, his pastorals and tragi-comedies, calculated 
merely to please the eye, and also three or four of his earlier 
comedies, which are even versified, and consequently carefully 
laboured, the critics give up without more ado. But even in 
the farces, with or without ballets, and intermezzos, in which 
the overcharged, and frequently the self-conscious and arbi- 
trary comic of buffoonery prevails, Moiiere has exhibited an 
inexhaustible store of excellent humour, scattered capftal 
jokes with a lavish hand, and drawn the most amusing cari- 
catures with a bold and vigorous pencil. All this, however, 
had been often done before his time; and I cannot see how, in 
this department, he can stand alone, as a creative and alto- 
gether original artist: for example, is Plautus' braggadocio 
soldier less meritorious in grotesque characterization than the 
Bourgeois Gentilhomme ? We shall immediately examine 
briefly whether Moiiere has actually improved the pieces 
which he borrowed, in whole or in part, from Plautus and 
Terence. When we bear in mind that in these Latin authors 
we have only a faint and faded copy of the new Attic Comedy, 
we shall then be enabled to judge whether he would have 
been able to surpass its masters had they come down to us. 
Many of his shifts and inventions, I am induced to suspect, 
are borrowed; and I am convinced that we should soon dis- 
cover the sources, were we to search into the antiquities of 
farcical literature '">'. Others are so obvious, and have so often 
been both used and abused, that they may in some measure 
be considered as the common stock of Comedy. Such is the 
scene in the Malade Imaginaire, where the wife's love is put 
to the test by the supposed death of the husband — an old 
joke, which our Hans Sachs has handled drolly enoughf. 
We have an avowal of Moliere's, which plainly shows he 
entertained no very great scruples of conscience on the sin of 

* The learned Tirabosclii (Storia della Letteratura Italiana, Lib. III. 
§ 25) attests this in very strong language: "Moiiere," says he, "has 
made so much use of the Italian comic writers, that were we to take from 
him all that he has taken from others, the volumes of his comedies would 
be very much reduced in bvilk." 

t I know not whether it has been already remarked, that the idea on 
which the Mariage Force is founded is borrowed from Rabelais ; who 
makes Pan urge enter upon the very same consultation as to his future 
marriage, and receive from Pantagruel just such a sceptical answer as 
Sganarelle does from the second philosopher. 

tJ2 



308 FRENCH COMEDY MOLIERE. 

plagiarism. In tlie undignified relations amidst which he 
liA^ed, and in which every thing was so much calculated for 
dazzling show, that his very name did not legally belong to 
him, we see less reason to wonder at all this. 

And even when in his farcical pieces Moliere did not lean 
on foreign invention, he still appropriated the comic manners 
of other countries, and more particularly the buffoonery of 
Italy. He wished, to introduce a sort of masked character 
without masks, who should constantly recur with the same 
name. They did not, however, succeed in becoming properly 
domiciliated in France ; because the flexible national charac- 
ter of the French, which so nimbly imitates every varying 
mode of the day, is incompatible with that odd originality of 
exterior to which in other nations, where all are not modelled 
alike by the prevailing social tone, humorsome and singular 
individuals carelessly give themselves up. As the Sgana- 
relles, Mascarilles, Scapins, and Crispins, must be allowed to 
retain their uniform, that every thing like consistency may 
not be lost, they have become completely obsolete en the 
stage. The French taste is, generally speaking, little in- 
■.clined to the self-conscious and arbitrary comic, with its droll 
exaggerations, even because these kinds of the comic speak 
more to the fancy than the understanding. We do not mean 
to censure this, nor to quarrel about the respective merits of 
the difl'erent species. The low estimation in which the former 
are held may perhaps contribute the more to the success of 
the comic of observation. And, in fact, the French comic 
writers have here displayed a great deal of refinement and in- 
genuity: in this lies the great merit of Moliere, and it is cer- 
tainly very eminent. Only, we would ask, whether it is of such 
a description as to justify the French critics, on account of 
some half a dozen of so-called regular comedies of Moliere, in 
holding in such infinite contempt as they do all the rich stores 
of refined and characteristic delineation which other nations 
possess, and in setting up Moliere as the unrivalled Genius of 
Comedy. 

If the praise bestowed by the French on their tragic writers 
1)6, both from national vanity and from ignorance of the men- 
tal productions of other nations, exceedingly extravagant; so 
their praises of Moliere are out of all proportion with their sub- 
ject. Voltaire calls him the Father of Genuine Comedy; and 
this may be true enough with respect to France. According 



FRENCH COMEDY MOLIERE. 309 

to La Harpe, Comedy and Moliere are synonymous terms; lie 
is the first of all moral philosophers, his works are the school 
of the world. Chamfort terms him the most amiable teacher 
of humanity since Socrates; and is of opinion that Julius 
Csesar who called Terence a half Menander, would have called 
Menander a half Moliere. — I doubt this. 

The kind of moral which we may in general exjDect from 
Comedy I have already shown : it is an applied doctrine of 
ethics, the art of life. In this respect the higher comedies of 
Moliere contain many admirable observations happily ex- 
pressed, which are still in the present day applicable; others 
are tainted with the narrowness of his own private opinions, 
or of the opinions which were prevalent in his age. In this 
sense Menander was also a philosophical comic writer; and 
we may boldly place the moral maxims which remain of his 
by the side at least of those of Moliere. But no comedy is 
constructed of mere apophthegms. The poet must be a moral- 
ist, but his personages cannot always be moralizing. And 
here Moliere appears to me to have exceeded the bounds of 
propriety : he gives us in lengthened disquisitions the 'pro and 
con of the character exhibited by him ; nay, he allows these 
to consist, in part, of principles which the persons themselves 
defend against the attacks of others. Now this leaves nothing 
to conjecture; and yet the highest refinement and delicacy 
of the comic of observation consists in this, that the characters 
disclose themselves unconsciously by traits which involun- 
tarily escape from them. To this species of comic element, the 
way in which Oronte introduces his sonnet, Orgon listens to 
the accounts respecting Tartufie and his wife, and Vadius and 
Trissotin fall by the ears, undoubtedly belongs ; but the end- 
less disquisitions of Alceste and Philinte as to the manner in 
which we ought to behave amid the falsity and corruption of 
the world do not in the slightest respect belong to it. They 
are serious, and yet they cannot satisfy us as exhausting the 
subject; and as dialogues which at the end leave the charac- 
ters precisely at the same point as at the beginning, they are 
devoid in the necessary dramatic movement. Such argumen- 
tative disquisitions which lead to nothing are frequent in all 
the most admired pieces of Moliere, and nowhere more than 
in the Misanthrope. Hence the action, which is also poorly 
invented, is found to drag heavily ; for, with the exception 
of a few scenes of a m.ore sprightly description, it consists 
altogether of discourses formally introduced and supported, 



310 FRE^X■H COMEDY — MOLIERE. 

wliile the stagnation is only partially concealed by the art 
employed on the details of versification and expression. In a 
word, these pieces are too didactic, too expressly instructive; 
whereas in Comedy the spectator should only be instructed 
incidentally, and, as it were, without its appearing to have 
been intended. 

Before we proceed to consider more particularly the pro- 
ductions which properly belong to the poet himself, and are 
acknowledged as master-pieces, we shall offer a few observa- 
tions on his imitations of the Latin comic writers. 

The most celebrated is the Avare. The manuscrij)ts of the 
Aulularia of Plautus are unfortunately mutilated towards the 
end; but yet we find enough in them to excite our admi- 
ration. From this play Moliere has merely borrowed a few 
scenes and jokes, for his plot is altogether different. In Plau- 
tus it is extremely simple : his Miser has found a treasure, 
v.^hich he anxiously watches and conceals. The suit of a rich 
bachelor for bis daughter excites a suspicion that his wealth 
is known. The preparations for the wedding bring strange 
servants and cooks into his house; he considers his pot of gold 
no longer secure, and conceals it out of doors, which gives an 
opportunity to a slave of his daughter's chosen lover, sent to 
glean tidings of her and her marriage, to steal it. Without 
doubt the thief must afterwards have been obliged to make 
restitution, otherwise the piece would end in too melancholy 
a manner, with the lamentations and imprecations of the old 
man. The knot of the love intrigue is easily untied: the 
young man, wdio had anticipated the rights of the marriage 
state, is the nephew of the bridegroom, who willingly re- 
nounces in his favour. All the incidents serve merely to lead 
the miser, by a gradually heightening series of agitations and 
alarms, to display and expose his miserable passion. Mo- 
liere, on the other hand, without attaining this object, puts a 
complicated machine in motion. Here we have a lover of the 
daughter, who, disguised as a servant, flatters the avarice 
of the old man ; a prodigal son, who courts the bride of his 
father; intriguing servants ; an usurer; and after all a disco- 
very at the end. The love intrigue is spun out in a very 
clumsy and every-day sort of manner; and it has the efifect of 
making us at diflferent times lose sight altogether of Har- 
pagon. Several scenes of a good comic description are merely 
subordinate, and do not, in a true artistic method, arise neces- 
sarily out of the thing itself. Moliere has accumulated, as it 



FRENCH COMEDY— MOLIERE. 311 

were, all kinds of avarice in one person ; and yet the miser 
who buries his treasures and he who lends on usury can 
hardly be the same. Harpagon starves his coach-horses : but 
why iias he any? This would apply better to a man who, 
with a disproportionate income, strives to keep up a certain 
appearance of rank. Comic characterization would soon be at 
an end were there really only one universal character of the 
miser. The most important deyiation of Moliere from Plaa- 
tus is, that while the one paints merely a person who watches 
over his treasure, the other makes his miser in love. The 
love of an old man is in itself an object of ridicule; the 
anxiety of a miser is no less so. We may easily see that when 
we unite with avarice, which separates a man from others and 
withdraws him within himself, the S3nnpathetio and liberal 
passion of love, the union must give rise to the most harsh 
contrasts. Avarice, however, is usually a very good preser- 
vative against falling in love. Where then is the more refined 
characterization; and as such a wonderful noise is made about 
it, where shall we here find the more valuable moral instruc- 
tion 1 — in Plautus or in Moliere 1 A miser and a super- 
annuated lover may both be present at the representation of 
Harpagon, and both return from the theatre satisfied with 
themselves, while the miser says to himself, " I am at least not 
in love ;" and the lover, " Well, at all events I am not a 
miser." High Comedy represents those follies which, however 
striking they may be, are reconcilable with the ordinary 
course of things ; whatever forms a singular exception, and is 
only conceivable amid an utter perversion of ideas, belongs to 
the arbitrary exaggeration of farce. Hence since (and it 
was undoubtedly the case long before) the time of Moliere, the 
enamoured and avaricious old man has been the peculiar com- 
mon-placf) of the Italian masked comedy and opera huff a, 
to which in truth it certainly belongs. Moliere has treated 
the main incident, the theft of the chest of gold, with an un- 
common want of skill. At the very beginning Harpagon, 
in a scene borrowed from Plautus, is fidgetty with suspicions 
lest a slave should have discovered his treasure. After this 
he forgets it ; for four whole acts there is not a word about it, 
and the spectator drops, as it were, from the clouds when the 
servant all at once brings in the stolen cofter; for we have no 
information as to the way in which he fell upon the treasure 
which had been so carefully concealed. Now this is really to 



312 FRENCH COMEDY MOLIERE. 

begin again, not truly to work out. But Plautus Las here 
sliown a great deal of ingenuity : the excessive anxiety of the 
old man for his pot of gold, and all that he does to save it, are 
the very cause of its loss. The subterraneous treasure is 
always invisibly present; it is, as it were, the evil spirit 
which drives its keeper to madness. In all this we have an 
impressive moral of a very different kind. In Harpagon's 
soliloquy, after the theft, the modern poet has introduced the 
most incredible exaggerations. The calling on the pit to dis- 
cover the theft, which, when well acted, produces so great an 
effect, is a trait of the old comedy of Aristophanes, and may 
serve to give us some idea of its powers of entertainment. 

The Amiokitryon is hardly anything more than a free imita- 
tion of the Latin original. The whole plan and order of the 
scenes is retained. The waiting-woman, or wife of Sosia, is 
the invention of Moliere. The parody of the story of the 
master's marriage in that of the servant is ingenious, and 
gives rise to the most amusing investigations on the part of 
Sosia to find out whether, during his absence a domestic bless- 
ing may not have also been conferred on him as well as on 
Amphitryon. The revolting coarseness of the old mytho- 
logical story is refined as much as it possibly could without 
injury to its spirit and boldness; and in general the execution 
is extremely elegant. The uncertainty of the personages 
respecting their own identity and duplication is founded on a 
sort of comic metaphysics : Sosia's reflections on his two egos, 
which have cudgelled each other, may in reality furnish mate- 
rials for thinking to our philosophers of the present day. 

The most unsuccessful of Moliere's imitations of the ancients 
is that of the Phormio in the Fouy-heries de Scapin. The whole 
plot is borrowed from Terence, and, by the addition of a 
second invention, been adapted, well or ill, or rather tortured, 
to a consistency with modern manners. The poet has indeed 
gone very hurriedly to work with his plot, which he has 
most negligently patched together. The tricks of Scapin, for 
the sake of which he has spoiled the plot, occupy the foremost 
place : but we may well ask whether they deserve it 1 The 
Grecian Phormio, a man who, for the sake of feasting with 
young companions, lends himself to all sorts of hazardous 
tricks, is an interesting and modest knave; Scapin directly 
the reverse. He had no cause to boast so much of his tricks : 
they are so stupidly planned that in justice they ought not to 



FRENCH COMEDY MOLIERE 813 

have succeeded. Even supposing the two old men to be obtuse 
and brainless in the extreme, we can hardly conceive how they 
could so easily fall into such a clumsy and obvious snare as 
he lays for them. It is also disgustingly improbable that 
Zerbinette, who as a gipsy ought to have known how to con- 
ceal knavish tricks, should run out into the street and tell the 
first stranger that she meets, who happens to be none other 
than Geronte himself, the deceit practised upon him by Sea- 
pin. The farce of the sack into which Scapin makes Geronte 
to crawl, then bears him off, and cudgels him as if by the hand 
of strangers, is altogether a most inappropriate excrescence. 
Boileau was therefore well warranted in reproaching Moliere 
with having shamelessly allied Terence to Taburin, (the 
merry-andrew of a mountebank). In reality, Moliere has 
here for once borrowed, not, as he frequently did, from the 
Italian masks, but from the Pagliasses of the rope-dancers and 
vaulters. 

We must not forget that the Rogueries of Scapin is one of 
the latest works of the poet. This and several others of the 
same period, as Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, La Comtesse dJ'Es- 
carhagnas, and even his last, the Malade Imaginaire, suffi- 
ciently prove that the maturity of his mind as an artist did 
not keep pace with the progress of years, otherwise he would 
have been disgusted with such loose productions. They serve, 
moreover, to show that frequently he brought forth pieces 
with great levity and haste, even when he had full leisure to 
think of posterity. If he occasionally subjected himself to 
stricter rules, we owe it more to his ambition, and his desire 
to be numbered among the classical writers of the golden age, 
than to any internal and growing aspiration after the highest 
excellence. 

The high claims already mentioned, which the French critics 
make in behalf of their favourite, are principally founded on 
the Ecole desFemmes, Tartufe, Le Misanthrope, and Les Fern- 
mes Savantes; pieces which are certainly finished with great 
care and diligence. Now, of these, we must expressly state 
in the outset, that we leave the separate beauties of language 
and versification altogether to the decision of native critics. 
These merits can only be subordinate requisites; and the un- 
due stress which is laid in France on the manner in which a 
piece is written and versified has, in our opinion, been both in- 
Tragedy and Comedy injurious to the development of other 



314 FREXCn COMEDY MOLIERE. 

'and more essential requisites of tLe dramatic art. We sLall 
confine our exceptions to the general spirit and plan of 
these comedies. 

L'Ecole des Femmes, the earliest of them, seems to me also 
the most excellent; it is the one in which there is the greatest 
display of A'ivacious humour, rapidity, and comic A-igour. As 
to the invention : a man arrived at an age unsuitable for wed- 
lock, purposely educating a young girl in ignorance and sim- 
plicity, that he may keep her faithful to himself, while 
everything turns out the very reverse of his wishes, was not 
a new one : a short while before Moliere it had been employed 
by Scarron, who borrowed it from a Spanish novel. Still, 
it was a lucky thought in him to adapt this subject to the 
stage, and the execution of it is most masterly. Here we 
have a real and very interesting plot; no creeping iuA-estiga- 
tions which do not carry forward the plot; all the matter is 
of one piece, without foreign levers and accidental inter- 
mixtures, with the exception of the catastrophe, which is 
brought about somewhat arbitrarily, by means of a scene 
of recognition. The naive confessions and innocent devices of 
Agnes are full of sweetness; they, together with the un- 
guarded confidence reposed by the young lover in his un- 
known rival, and the stifled rage of the old man against both, 
form a series of comic scenes of the most amusing, and at the 
same time of the most refined description. 

As an example how little the violation of certain probabili- 
ties diminishes our pleasure, we may remark that Moliere, with 
respect to the choice of scene, has here indulged in very great 
liberties. We will not inquire how Arnolph frequently hap- 
pens to converse with Agnes in the street or in an open place, 
while he keeps her at the same time so carefully locked up. 
But if Horace does not know Arnolph to be the intended 
husband of his mistress, and betrays everything to him, this 
can only be allowable from Arnolph's passing with her by 
another name. Horace ought therefore to look for Arnolph 
in his own house in a remote quarter, and not before the door 
of his mistress, where yet he always finds him, without enter- 
taining any suspicion from that circumstance. Why do the 
French critics set such a high value on similar probabilities in 
the dramatic art, when they must be compelled to admit that 
their best masters have not always observed them ? 

Tartu fe is an exact picture of hypocritical piety held up for 



FRENCH COMEDY — MOLIERE. SI 5 

universal warning; it is an excellent serious satire, but witli 
the exception of separate scenes it is not a comedy. It is 
generally admitted tliat the catastrophe is bad, as it is brought 
about by a foreign means. It is bad, too, because the danger 
which Orgon runs of being driven from his house and thrown 
into prison is by no means such an embarrassment as his 
blind confidence actually merited. Here the serious purpose 
of the work is openly disclosed, and the eulogium of the king 
is a dedication by which the poet, even in the piece itself^ 
humbly recommends himself to the protection of his majesty 
against the persecutions which he dreaded. 

In the Femmes Savantes raillery has also the upper hand of 
mirth; the action is insignificant and not in the least degree 
attractive; and the catastrophe, after the manner of Moliere, 
is arbitrarily brought about by foreign means. Yet these 
technical imperfections might well be excused for the sake of 
its satirical merit. But in this respect the composition, from 
the limited nature of its views, is anything but equal through- 
out. We are not to expect from the comic poet that he 
should always give us, along with the exhibition of a folly, a 
representation also of the ojjposite way of wisdom; in this 
way he would announce his object of instructing us with too 
much of method. But two opposite follies admit of being 
exhibited together in an equally ludicrous light. Molierehas 
here ridiculed the affectation of a false taste, and the vain- 
gloriousness of empty knowledge. Proud in their own igno- 
rance and contempt for all higher enlightenment, these 
characters certainly deserve the ridicule bestowed on them; 
but that which in this comedy is portrayed as the correct 
way of wisdom falls nearly into the same error. All the rea- 
sonable persons of the piece, the father and his brother, the 
lover and the daughter, nay, even the ungrammatical maid, are 
all proud of what they are not, have not, and know not, and 
even what they do not seek to be, to have, or to know. 
Chyrsale's limited view of the destination of the female sex, 
Clitander's opinion on the inutility of learning, and the senti- 
ments elsewhere advanced respecting the measure of cultiva- 
tion and knowledge which is suitable to a man of rank, were 
all intended to convey Moliere's own opinions himself on 
these subjects. "We may here trace in him a certain vein of 
valet-de-chambre morality, which also makes its appearance 
on many other points. We can easily conceive how his edu- 



316 FRENCH COMEDY MOLIERE. 

cation and situation sLould lead liim to entertain such ideas; 
but tLey are hardly such as entitle him to read lectures 
on human society. That, at the end, Trissotiu should be 
iguomiuiously made to commit an act of low selfishness is 
odious; for we know that a learned man then alive was 
satirized under this character, and that his name was very 
slightly disguised. The vanity of an author is, on the whole, 
a preservative against this weakness : there are many more 
lucrative careers than that of authorship for selfishness without 
a feeling of honour. 

The Misanthrope, which, as is well known, was at first 
coldy received, is still less amusing than the two preceding 
pieces : the action is less rapid, or rather there is none at all; 
and there is a great want of coherence between the meagre 
incidents which give only an apparent life to the dramatic 
movement, — the quarrel with Oronte respecting the sonnet, 
and its adjustment; the decision of the law-suit which is 
ever being brought forward; the unmasking of Celimene 
through the vanity of the two Marquisses, and the jealousy 
of Arsinoe. Besides all this, the general plot is not even 
probable. It is framed with a view to exhibit the thorough 
delineation of a character; but a character discloses itself 
much more in its relations with others than immediately. 
How comes Alceste to have chosen Philinte for a friend, 
a man whose principles were directly the reverse of his own % 
How comes he also to be enamoured of a coquette, who 
has nothing amiable in her character, and who entertains 
us merely by her scandal % We might well say of this Celi- 
mene, without exaggeration, that there is not one good point 
in her whole composition. In a character like that of Alceste> 
love is not a fleeting sensual impulse, but a serious feeling arising 
from a want of a sincere mental union. His dislike of flatter- 
ing falsehood and malicious scandal, which always characterise 
the conversation of Celimene, breaks forth so incessantly, 
that, we feel, the first moment he heard her open her lips 
ought to have driven him for ever from her society. Finally, 
the subject is ambiguous, and that is its greatest fault. The 
limits within which Alceste is in the right and beyond which 
he is in the wrong, it would be no easy matter to fix, and I 
am afraid the poet himself did not here see very clearly 
what he would be at. Philinte, however, with his illusory jus- 
tification of the way of the world, and his phlegmatic resigna- 



FRENCH COMEDY — MOLIERE, 317 

tion, he paints throughout as the intelligent and amiable man. 
As against the elegant Celimene, Alceste is most decidedly in 
the right, and only in the wrong in the inconceivable weak- 
ness of his conduct towards her. He is in the right in 
his complaints of the corruption of the social constitution; 
the facts, at least, which he adduces, are disputed by nobody. 
He is in the wrong, however, in delivering his sentiments 
with so much violence, and at an unseasonable time; but as he 
cannot prevail on himself to assume the dissimulation which is 
necessary to be well received in the world, he is perfectly in 
the right in preferring solitude to society. Rousseau has 
already censured the ambiguity of the piece, by which what 
is deserving of approbation seems to be turned into ridicule. 
His opinion was not altogether unprejudiced; for his own 
character, and his behaviour towards the world, had a striking 
similarity to that of Alceste; and, moreover, he mistakes the 
essence of dramatic composition, and founds his condemnation 
on examples of an accidentally false direction. 

So far with respect to the famed moral philosophy of 
Moliere in. his pretended master-piece. From what has been 
stated, I consider myself warranted to assert, in opposition to 
the prevailing opinion, that Moliere succeeded best with the 
coarse and homely comic, and that both his talents and his 
inclination, if unforced, would have determined him alto- 
gether to the composition of farces such as he continued to 
write even to the very end of his life. He seems always 
to have whipped himself up as it were to his more serious 
pieces in verse : we discover something of constraint in both 
plot and. execution. His friend Boileau probably communi- 
cated to him his view of a correct mirth, of a grave and 
decorous laughter; and so Moliere determined, after the car- 
nival of his farces, to accommodate himself occasionally to the 
spare diet of the regular taste, and to unite what in their own 
nature are irreconcileable, namely, dignity and drollery. 
However, we find even in his prosaic pieces traces of that 
didactical and satirical vein which is peculiarly alien 'to 
Comedy; for example, in his constant attacks on physicians 
and lawyers, in his disquisitions upon the true correct tone 
of society, &c., the intention of which is actually to censure, 
to refute, to instruct, and not merely to afi'ord entertain- 
ment. 

The classical reputation of Moliere still preserves his pieces 



318 FRENCH COMEDY SCAR RON. 

Oil tHe stage*, altliougli in tone and manners they are altoge- 
ther obsolete. This is a danger to which the comic poet is 
inevitably exposed from that side of his composition which 
does not rest on a poetical foundation, but is determined by 
the prose of external reality. The originals of the individual 
portraits of Moliere have long since disappeared. The comic 
poet who lays claim to immortality must, in the delineation of 
character and the disposition of his plan, rest principally on 
such motives as are always intelligible, being taken not from 
the manners of any particular age, but drawn from human 
nature itself. 

In addition to Moliere we have to notice but a few older or 
contemporary comedians. Of Corneille, who from the imita- 
tion of Spanish comedies acquired a name before he was 
known as a tragic author, only one piece keeps possession of 
the stage, Le Menteur, from Lope de Vega; and even this 
evinces, in our opinion, no comic talent. The poet, accus- 
tomed to stilts, moves awkwardly in a species of the drama 
the first requisites of which are ease and sweetness. Scarron, 
who only understood burlesque, has displayed this talent or 
knack in several comedies taken from the Spanish, of which 
two, Jodelle, or the Servant turned Master, and Don Japhet of 
Armenia, have till within these few years been occasionally 
acted as carnival farces, and have always been very successful. 
The plot of the Jodelle, which belongs to Don Francisco do 
Roxas, is excellent; the style and the additions of Scarron 
have not been able altogether to disfigure it. All that is coarse, 
nauseous, and repugnant to taste, belongs to the French writer 
of the age of Louis XIV., who in his day was not without 
celebrity; for the Spanish work is throughout characterized 
by a spirit of tenderness. The burlesque tone, which in many 

* If they were not already in possession of tlie stage, the indecency of a 
nnmber of the scenes would cause many of them to be rejected, as the pub- 
lic of the present day, though probably not less cormpt than that of the 
author's times, is passionately fond of throwing over every thing a cloak 
of morahty. When a piece of Moliere is acted, the head theatre of 
Paris is generally a downright solitude, if no particular circumstance brings 
the spectators together. Since these Lectures were held, George Dandin 
has been hissed at Paris, to the great grief of the watchmen of the critical 
Sion. This was probably not on account of mere indecency. What- 
ever may be said in defence of the morality of the piece, the privileges of 
the higher classes are offensively favoured in it ; and it concludes with 
the shameless triumph of arrogance and depravity over plain honesty. 



FRENCH COMEDY RACINE — BOURSAULT. 319 

languages may be tolerated, has been properly rejected by 
the French, for whenever it is not guided by judgment and 
taste, it sinks to disgusting vulgarity, Don Japhet repre- 
sents in a still ruder manner the mystification of a coarse fool. 
The original belongs to the kind which the Spaniards call 
Comedias de Figuron : it also has undoubtedly been spoiled by 
Scarron. The worst of the matter is, that his exaggerations 
are trifling without being amusing. 

Racine hit upon a very different plan of imitation from that 
which was then followed, in his Plaideurs, of which the idea 
is derived from Aristophanes. The piece in this respecfe 
stands alone. The action is merely a light piece of legerde- 
main ; but the follies which it portrays belong to a circle, and^ 
with the imitations of the officers of court and advocates, 
form a complete whole. Many lines are at once witty sallies 
and characteristic traits; and some of the jokes have that 
apparently aimless drollery, which genuine comic inspiration 
can alone inspire. Racine would have become a dangerous 
rival of Moliere, if he had continued to exercise the talent 
which he has here displayed. 

Some of the comedies of a younger contemporary and rival 
of Moliere, Boursault, have still kept possession of the stage; 
they are all of the secondary description, which the French call 
pieces a tiroir, and of which Moliere gave the first example 
in Le Facheiix. This kind, from the accidental succession 
of the scenes, which are strung together on some one common 
occasion, bear in so far a resemblance to the Mimes of the 
ancients ; they are intended also to resemble them in the accu- 
rate imitation of individual peculiarities. These subjects are 
particularly favourable for the display of the Mimic art in the 
more limited signification of the word, as the same player always 
appears in a different disguise, and assumes a new character. 
It is advisable not to extend such pieces beyond a single act, 
as the want of dramatic movement, and the uniformity of the 
occasion through all the difierent changes, are very apt to 
excite impatience. But Boursault's pieces, which otherwise 
are not without merit, are tediously spun out to five acts. 
The idea of exhibiting ^Esop, a slave-born sage, and deformed 
in person, in possession of court favour, was original and 
happy. But in the two pieces, jEsop in the City, and jFlsop at 
Court, the fables which are tacked to every important scene 
are drowned in diffuse morals • besides, they are quite distinct 



S20 FRENCH COMEDY — REGNARD. 

from the dialogue, instead of being interwoven with it, like the 
fable of Menenius Agrippa in Shakspeare ; and modern man- 
ners do not suit with this childish mode of instruction. In 
the Mercm-e Galant all sorts of out-of-the-way beings bring 
their petitions to the writer of a weekly paper. This thought 
and many of the most entertaining details have, if I am not 
mistaken, been borrowed by a popular German author without 
acknowledgment. 

A considerable time elapsed after the death of Moliere 
before the appearance of Regnard, to whom in France the 
second place in Comedy is usually assigned. He was a sort 
of adventurer who, after roaming a long time up and down 
the world, fell to the trade of a dramatic writer, and divided 
himself betwixt the composition of regular comedies in verse, 
and the Italian theatre, which still continued to flourish under 
Gherardi, and for which he sketched the French scenes. The 
Joueur, his first play, is justly preferred to the others. The 
author was acquainted with this passion, and a gamester's 
life, from his own experience : it is a picture after nature, with 
features strongly drawn, but without exaggeration ; and the 
plot and accessory circumstances, with the exception of a pair 
of caricatures which might well have been dispensed with, are 
all appropriate and in character. The Distrait possesses not 
only the faults of the methodical pieces of character which I 
have already censured, but it is not even a peculiar character 
at all; the mistakes occasioned by the unfortunate habit of 
being absent in thought are all alike, and admit of no height- 
ening: they might therefore have filled up an after-piece, but, 
certainly did not merit the distinction of being spun out into 
a comedy of five acts. Regnard has done little more than 
dramatize a series of anecdotes which La Bruyere had as- 
sembled together under the name of a certain character. The 
execution of the Legataire Universel shows more comic 
talent; but from the error of the general plan, arising out of 
a want of moral feeling, this talent is completely thrown 
away. La Harpe declares this piece the chef-d'oeuvre of comic 
pleasantry. It is, in fact, such a subject for pleasantrj'- as 
would move a stone to pity, — as enlivening as the grin of a 
death's head. What a subject for mirth : a feeble old man in 
the very arms of death, teased by young profligates for his 
property, has a false will imposed on him while he is lying in- 
sensible, as is believed, on his death-bed ! If it be true that 



FRENCH COMEDY LEGRAND. 321 

tliese scenes liave always given rise to much laugliter on the 
French stage, it only proves the spectators to possess the same 
unfeeling levity which disgusts us in the author. We have 
elsewhere shown that, with an apparent indifference, a moral 
reserve is essential to the comic poet, since the impressions 
■which he would wish to produce are inevitably destroyed 
whenever disgust or compassion is excited. 

Legrand the actor, a contemporary of Regnard, was one of 
the first comic poets who gained celebrity for after-pieces in 
verse, a species of composition in which the French have since 
produced a number of elegant trifles. He has not, however, 
risen to any thing like the same height of posthumous fame as 
Regnard : La Harpe dismisses him with very little ceremony. 
Yet we should be disposed to rank him very high as an artist^ 
even if he had composed nothing else than the King ofLuhher- 
land {Le Roi de Cocagne), a sprightly farce in the marvellous 
style, overflowing with what is very rare in France, a native 
fanciful wit, animated by the most lively mirth, which al- 
though carried the length of the most frolicsome giddiness, 
sports on and round all subjects with the utmost harmlessness. 
We might call it an elegant and ingenious piece of madness ; 
an example of the manner in which the play of Aristophanes, 
or rather that of Eupolis*, who had also dramatised the tale 
of Lubherland, might be brought on our stage without exciting 
disgust, and without personal satire. And yet Legrand was^ 
certainly, unacquainted with the Old Comedy, and his own 
genius (we scruple not to use the expression) led him to the 
invention. The execution is as careful as in a regular 
comedy; but to this title in the French opinion it can have 
no pretensions, because of the wonderful world which it repre- 
sents, of several of the decorations, and of the music here and 
there introduced. The French critics show themselves in 
general indifferent, or rather unjust towards every suggestion. 
of genuine fancy. Before they can feel respect for a work it 
must present a certain appearance of labour and effort. Among 
a giddy and light-minded people, they have appropriated to 
themselves the post of honour of pedantry : they confound the 
levity of jocularity, which is quite compatible with profundity 
in art, with the levity of shallowness, which (as a natural 
gift or natural defect,) is so frequent among their countrymen. 

The eighteenth century produced in France a number of 
* See page 16/. 



322 FRENCH COMEDY DURING THE REGENCY, 

comic writers of the second and tnird rank, but no distin- 
guished genius capable of advancing the art a step farther; in 
consequence of wbich the belief in Moliere's unapproachable 
excellence has become still more firmly riveted. As we have 
not space at present to go through all these separate produc- 
tions, we shall premise a few observations on the general spirit 
of French Comedy before entering on the consideration of the 
writers whom we have not yet mentioned. 

The want of easy progress, and over-lengthy disquisitions 
in stationary dialogue, have characterized more or less every 
writer since the time of Moliere, on whose regular pieces also 
the conventional rules applicable to Tragedy have had an in- 
disputable influence. French Comedy in verse has its tirades 
as well as Tragedy. Besides, there was another circumstance, 
the introduction of a certain degree of stiff etiquette. The 
Comedy of other nations has generally, from motives which we 
can be at no loss in understanding, descended into the circle 
of the lower classes : but the French Comedy is usually con- 
fined to the upper ranks of society. Here, then, we trace the 
influence of the court as the central point of the whole na- 
tional vanity. Those spectators xA\o in reality had no access 
to the great world, were flattered by being surrounded on the 
stage with marquises and chevaliers, and while the poet sati- 
rized the fashionable follies, they endeavoured to snatch some- 
thing of that privileged tone which was so much the object of 
en^^. Society rubs oflf the salient angles of character; its 
only amusement consists in the pursuit of the ridiculous, and 
on the other hand it trains us in the faculty of being upon our 
guard against the observations of others. The natural, cor- 
dial, and jovial comic of the inferior classes is thrown aside, 
and instead of it another description (the fruit of polished 
society, and bearing in its insipidity the stamp of so purpose- 
less a way of living) is adopted. The object of these come- 
dies is no longer life but society, that perpetual negotiation 
between conflicting vanities which never ends in a sincere 
treaty of peace: the embroidered dress, the hat under the 
arm, and the sword by the side, essentially belong to them, 
and the whole of their characterization is limited to painting 
the folly of the men and the coquetry of the women. The in- 
sipid uniformity of these pictures v.'as unfortunately too often 
seasoned by the corruption of moral principles which, more 
especially after the age of Louis XIV., it became, under the 



FRENCH COMEDY DESTOUCKES. 823 

Begency of Louis XY,, the fashion openly to avow. In this 
period the fayourite of the women, the liomme a bonnes for- 
tunes, who in the tone of satiety boasts of the multitude of 
his conquests too easily won, was not a character invented by 
the comic writers, but a portrait accurately taken from real 
life, as is proved by the numerous memoirs of the last cen- 
tury, even down to those of a Besenval. We are disg-asted 
with the unveiled sensuality of the love intrigues of the Greek 
Comedy : but the Greeks would have found much more dis- 
gusting the lore intrigues of the French Comedy, entered into 
with married women, merely from giddy vanity. Limits have 
been fixed by nature herself to sensual excess; but when 
vanity assumes the part of a sensuality already deadened and 
enervated, it gives birth to the most hollow corruption. And 
even if, in the constant ridicule of marriage by the petit- 
maitres, and in their moral scepticism especially with rega,rd 
to female virtue, it was the intention of the poets to ridicule 
a prevailing depravity, the picture is not on that account the 
less immoral. The great or fashionable world, which in point 
of numbers is the little world, and yet considers itself alone 
of importance, can hardly be improved by it; and for the 
other classes the example is but too seductive, from the 
brilliancy with which the characters are surrounded. But in 
so far as Comedy is concerned, this deadening corruption is by 
no means invariably entertaining; and in many pieces, in 
which fools of quality give the tone, for example in the 
Chevalier a la mode de Dancourt, the picture of complete 
moral dissoluteness which, although true, is nevertheless both 
unpoetical and unnatural, is productive not merely of ennui, 
but of the most decided repugnance and disgust. 

From the number of writers to whom this charge chiefly, 
applies, we must in justice except Destouches and Marivaux, 
fruitful or at least diligent comic writers, the former in verse- 
and the latter in prose. They acquired considerable distinc- 
tion among their contemporaries in the first half of the eigh- 
teenth century, but on the stage few of their works sursdved 
either of them. Destouches vras a moderate, tame, and 
well-meaning author, who applied himself with all his powers 
to the composition of regular comedies, which were always 
drawn out to the length of five acts, and in which there is 
nothing laughable, with the exception of the vivacity dis- 
played in virtue of their situation, by Lisette ajid her lover 

X 2 



324 FRENCH COMEDY MARIVAUX. 

Frontin, or Pasquln. He was in no danger, from any excess 
of frolicsome petulance, of falling from the dignified tone of 
tlie supposed high comic into the familiarity of farce, which 
the French hold in such contemj)t. ^\^itli moderate talents, 
without humour, and almost without vivacity, neither inge- 
nious in invention, nor possessed of a deep insight into the 
human mind and human affairs, he has in some of his produc- 
tions, Le Glorieux, Le Philosophe Marie, and especially Vlnde- 
cis, shewn with great credit to himself what true and unpretend- 
ing diligence is by itself capable of effecting. Other pieces, 
for instance, L'lngrat and L' Homme Singulier, are complete 
failures, and enable us to see that a poet who considers Tar^ 
tuffe and The Misanthrope as the highest objects of imitation, 
(and with Destouches this was evidently the case,) has only 
another step to take to lose sight of the comic art altogether. 
These two works of Moliere have not been friendly beacons 
to his followers, but false lights to their ruin. Whenever 
a comic poet in his preface worships The Misanthrope as a 
model, I can immediately foretell the result of his labours. 
He will sacrifice every thing like the gladsome inspiration of 
fun and all truly poetical amusement, for the dull and formal 
seriousness of prosaic life, and for prosaical applications 
stamped with the respectable name of morals. 

That Marivaux is a mannerist is so universally acknow- 
ledged in France, that the peculiar term of marivaudage has 
been invented for his mannerism. But this is at least his own, 
and at first sight by no means unpleasing. Delicacy of mind 
cannot be denied to Marivaux, only it is couj)led with a 
certain littleness. We have stated it to be the most refined 
species of the comic of observation, when a peculiarity or 
property shows itself most conspicuously at the very time its 
possessor has the least suspicion of it, or is most studious to 
conceal it. Marivaux has applied this to the passions ; and 
naivete in the involuntary disclosure of emotions certainly 
belongs to the domain of Comedy. But then this naivete is 
prepared by him with too much art, appears too solicitous for 
our applause, and, we may almost say, seems too well pleased 
with it himself. It is like children in the game of hide and 
seek, they cannot stay quiet in their corner, but keep popping 
out their heads, if they are not immediately discovered ; nay, 
sometimes, which is still worse, it is like the squinting over a 
fan held up from affected modesty. In Marivaux we always 



FRENCH COMEDY — MARIVAUX. 325 

see liis aim from tlie very beginning, and all our attention is 
directed to discovering the way by which he is to lead us to 
it. This would be a skilful mode of composing, if it did not 
degenerate into the insignificant and the superficial. Petty 
inclinations are strengthened by petty motives, exposed to 
petty probations, and brought by petty steps nearer and 
nearer to a petty conclusion. The whole generally turns on a 
declaration of love, and adl sorts of clandestine means are 
tried to elicit it, or every kind of slight allusion is hazarded 
to hasten it. Marivaux has neither painted characters, nor 
contrived intrigues. The whole plot generally turns on an 
unpronounced word, which is always at the tongue's end, and 
which is frequently kept back in a pretty arbitrary manner. 
He is so uniform in the motives that he employs, that when 
we have read one of his pieces with a tolerable degree of 
attention we know all of them. However, we must still 
rank him above the herd of stifl' imitators; something is to be 
learned even from him, for he possessed a peculiar though a 
very limited view of the essence of Comedy. 

Two other single works are named as master-pieces in the 
regular Comedy in verse, belonging to two writers who here 
perhaps have taken more pains, but in other departments have 
given a freer scope to their natural talent : the Met7'oma7iie of 
Piron and the Mediant of Gresset. The Metromanie is not 
written without humorous inspiration. In the young man 
possessed with a passion for poetry, Pinm intended in some 
measure to paint himself; but as we always go tenderly to 
work in the ridicule of ourselves, together with the amiable 
weakness in question, he endows his hero with talents, mag- 
nanimity, and a good heart. But this tender reserve is not 
peculiarly favourable for comic strength. As to the Mediant, 
it is one of those gloomy comedies which might be rapturously 
hailed by a Timon as serving to confirm his aversion to human 
society, but which, on social and cheerful minds, can only 
give rise to the most painful impression. Why paint a dark 
and odious disposition which, devoid of all human sympathy, 
feeds its vanity in a cold contempt and derision of everything, 
and solely occupies itself in aimless detraction? Why exhibit 
such a moral deformity, which could hardly be tolerated even 
in Tragedy, for the mere purpose of producing domestic dis- 
content and petty embarrassments ? 

Yet, according to the decision of the French, critics, these 



326 TKE FRENCH OPERA. OPERETTE AND VAUDEVILLE. 

three comedies, the Glorieux, the 2£etro7nanie, and i\ieMechantf 
are all that the eighteenth century can oppose to Moliere. 
We should be disposed to rank the Le Vieux Bachelier of 
Collin d'Harleville much higher; but for judging this true 
picture of manners there is no scale afforded in the works of 
Moliere, and it can only be compared with those of Terence. 
We have here the utmost refinement and accuracy of charac- 
terization, most felicitously combined with an able plot, which 
keeps on the stretch and rivets our attention, while a certain 
mildness of sentiment is diffused over the whole. 

I purpose now to make a few observations on the secondary 
species of the Opera, Operettes, and Vaudevilles, and shall 
conclude with a view of the present condition of the French 
stage with reference to the histrionic art. 

In the serious, heroic, or rather the ideal opera., if we may 
so express ourselves, we can only mention one poet of the 
age of Louis XIV., Quinault — who is now little read, but 
yet deserving of high praise. As a tragic poet, in the early 
period of his career, he was satirized by Boileau ; but he 
was afterwards highly successful in another species, the 
musical drama. Mazarin had introduced into France a taste 
for the Italian opera; Louis was also desirous of rivalling or 
surpassing foreign countries in the external magnificence of 
the drama, in decoration, machirery, music, and dancing; 
these were all to be employed in the celebration of the court 
festivals; and accordingly Moliere was employed to write 
gay, and Quinault serious operas, to the music of Lulli. I 
am not sufficiently versed in the earlier literature of the 
Italian opera to be able to speak with accuracy, but I suspect 
that here also Quinault laboured more after Spanish than 
Italian models ; and more particularly, that he derived from 
the Fiestas of Calderon the general form of his operas, and 
their frequently allegorical preludes which are often to be 
found in them. It is true, poetical ornament is much more 
sparingly dealt out, as the whole is necessarily shortened for 
the sake of the music, and the very nature of the French 
language and versification is incompatible with the splendid 
magnificence, the luxurious fulness, displayed by Calderon. 
But the operas of Quinault are, in their easy progress, truly 
fanciful; and the serious opera ca.nnot, in my opinion, be 
stripped of the charm of the marvellous without becoming at 
length wearisome. So far Quinault appears to me to have 



THE FRENCH HEROIC OPERA — QUINAULT. 327 

taken a much better road towards the true vocation of 
particular departments of art, than that on which Metastasio 
travelled long after him. The latter has admirably provided 
for the wants of a melodious music expressive solely of feeling ; 
but where does he furnish the least food for the imagination ? 
On the other hand, I am not so sure that Quinault is justly 
entitled to praise for sacrificing, in compliance with the taste 
of his countrymen, everything like comic intermixture. He 
has been censured for an occasional play on language in the 
expression of feeling. But is it just to exact the severity of 
the tragical cothurnus in light works of this description ? 
Why should not Poetry also be allowed her arabesque 1 No 
person can be more an enemy to mannerism than I am; but 
to censure it aright, we ought first to understand the degree 
of nature and truth which we have a right to expect from each 
tspecies, and what is alone compatible with it. The verses of 
Quinault have no other naivete and simplicity than those of 
the madrigal ; and though they occasionally fall into the 
luscious, at other times they express a languishing tenderness 
with gracefulness and a soft melody. The opera ought to 
resemble the enchanted gardens of Armida, of which Quinault 
says, 

Dans ces lieux enchantis la volupte preside. 

We ought only to be awaked out of the voluptuous dreams 
of feeling to enjoy the magical illusions of fancy. When 
once we have come to imagine, instead of real men, beings 
whose only language is song, it is but a very short step to 
represent to ourselves creatures whose only occupation is 
love; that feeling which hovers between the sensible and 
intellectual world; and the first invention becomes natural 
again by means of the second. 

Quinault has had no successors. How far below his, both 
in point of invention and of execution, are the French operas 
of the present day ! The heroic and tragic have been required 
in a dej)artnient where they cannot produce their proper 
effect. Instead of handling with fanciful freedom mytholo- 
gical materials or subjects taken from chivalrous or pastoral 
romances, they have after the manner of Tragedy chained 
themselves down to history, and by means of their heavy 
seriousness, and the pedantry of their rules, they have so 
managed matters, that Dulness with leaden sceptre presides 



328 THE FRENCH HEROIC OPERA ITS DECLINE. 

oyer the opera. The deficiencies of their music, the unfitness 
of theFrench language for composition in a style anything 
higher than that of the most simple national melodies, the 
unaccented and arbitrary nature of their recitative, the bawling 
bravura of the singers, must be left to the animadversions of 
musical critics. 

With pretensions far lower, the Comic Opera or Operette 
approaches much more nearly to perfection. With respect to 
the composition, it may and indeed ought to assume only a 
national tone. The transition from song to speech, without 
any musical accompaniment or heightening, which was cen- 
sured by Rousseau as an unsuitable mixture of two distinct 
modes of composition, may be displeasing to the ear; but it 
has unquestionably produced an advantageous effect on the 
structure of the pieces. In the recitatives, which generally 
are not half understood, and seldom listened to with any 
degree of attention, a plot which is even moderately compli- 
cated cannot be developed with due clearness. Hence in the 
Italian op>era huff a, the action is altogether neglected; and 
along with its grotesque caricatures, it is distinguished for 
■uniform situations, which admit not of dramatic progress. 
But the comic opera of the French, although from the space 
occupied by the music it is unsusceptible of any very perfect 
dramatic development, is still calculated to produce a consider- 
able stage eflfect, and speaks pleasingly to the imagination. 
The poets have not here been prevented by the constraint of 
rules from following out their theatrical A^ews. Hence these 
fleeting productions are in no wise deficient in the rapidity, 
life, and amusement, which are frequently wanting in the 
more correct dramatic works of the French. The distin- 
guished favour which the operettes of a Favart, a Sedaine and 
later poets, of whom some are still alive, always meet with in 
Germany, (where foreign literature has long lost its com- 
manding influence, and where the national taste has pro- 
nounced so strongly against French Tragedy,) is by no means 
to be placed to the account of the music ; it is in reality owing 
to their poetical merit. To cite only one example out of many, 
I do not hesitate to declare the whole series of scenes in 
Baoul Sire de Crequy, where the children of the drunken 
turnkey set the prisoner at liberty, a master-piece of theatrical 
painting. How much were it to be wished that the Tragedy 
of the French, and even their Comedy in court-dress, had but 



THE FRENCH VAUDEVILLE LE SAGE PIRON. 329 

a little of this truth of circumstance, this vivid presence, and 
power of arresting the attention. In several 02:)erettes, for 
instance in a Richard Coeur de Lio7i and a Nina, the traces 
of the romantic spirit are not to be mistaken. 

The vaudeville is but a variation of the comic opera. The 
essential difference is that it dispenses with composition, by 
which the comic opera forms a musical whole, as the songs 
are set to well-known popular airs. The incessant skipping 
from the song to the dialogue, often after a few scrapes of 
the violin and a few words, with the accumulation of airs 
mostly common, but frequently also in a style altogether 
different from the poetry, drives an ear accustomed to Italian 
music to despair. If we can once make up our minds to bear 
with this, we shall not unfrequently be richly recompensed in 
comic drollery; even in the choice of a melody, and the 
allusion to the common and well-known words, there is often 
a display of wit. In earlier times writers of higher preten- 
sions, a Le Sage and a Piron have laboured in the depart- 
ment of the vaudeville, and even for marionettes. The w^its 
who now dedicate themselves to this species are little known 
out of Paris, but this gives them no great concern. It not 
unfrequently happens that several of them join together, that 
the fruit of their common talents may be sooner brought to 
light. The parody of new theatrical pieces, the anecdotes of 
the day, which form the common talk among all the idlers of 
the capital, must furnish them Avith subjects in working up 
which little delay can be brooked. These vaudevilles are like 
the gnats that buzz about in a summer evening; they often 
sting, but they fly merrily about so long as the sun of oppor- 
tunity shines upon them. A piece like the Des2:>air of Jocrisse^ 
which, after a lapse of years, may be still occasionally brought 
out, passes justly among the ephemeral productions for a 
classical work that has gained the crown of immortality. 
We must, however, see it acted by Brunet, wdiose face is 
almost a mask, and who is nearly as inexhaustible in the 
part of the simpleton as Puncinello is in his. 

From a consideration of the sportive secondary species, 
formed out of a mixture of the comic with the affecting, in 
which authors and spectators give themselves up without 
reserve to their natural inclinations, it appears to me evident, 
that as comic wit with the Italians consists in grotesque 
mimicry or buffoonery, and with the English in humour, with 



330 DE LA MOTTE — DIDEROT — MERCIER. 

tlie French it consists in good-natured gaiety. Among the 
lower orders especially this property is everywhere visible, 
where it has not been supplanted by the artifice of corruption. 

With respect to the present condition of Dramatic Art in 
France, every thing depends on the endeavours to introduce 
the theatrical liberties of other countries, or mixed species of 
the drama. The hope of producing any thing truly new in 
the two species which are alone admitted to be regular, of 
excelling the works already produced, of filling up the old 
frames with richer pictures, becomes more and more distant 
every day. A new work seldom obtains a decided approba- 
tion; and, even at best, this approbation only lasts till it 
has been found out that the work is only a new preparation 
of their old classical productions. 

We have passed over several things relating to these 
endeavours, that we may deliver together all the observations 
which we have to make on the subject. The attacks hitherto 
made against the French forms of art, first by De la Motte, 
and afterwards by Diderot and Mercier, have been like voices 
in the wilderness. It could not be otherwise, as the principles 
on which these writers proceeded were in reality destructive, 
not merely of the conventional forms, but of all poetical forms 
whatever, and as none of them showed themselves capable of 
suitably supporting their doctrine by their own example, 
even when they were in the right they contrived, neverthe- 
less, by a false application, to be in the wrong. 

The most remarkable among them is Diderot, whom Les- 
sing calls the best critic of the French. In opposition to this 
opinion I should be disposed to affirm that he was no critic 
at all. I will not lay any stress on his mistaking the object 
of poetry and the fine arts, which he considered to be merely 
moral : a man may be a critic without being a theorist. But 
a man cannot be a critic without being thoroughly acquainted 
with the conditions, means, and styles of an art ; and here 
the nature of Diderot's studies and acquirements renders his 
critical capabilities extremely questionable. This ingenious 
sophist deals out his blows with such boisterous haste in the 
province of criticism, that the half of them are thrown away. 
The true and the false, the old and the new, the essential 
and the unimportant, are so mixed up together, that the 
highest praise we can bestow upon him is, that he is 
worthy of the labour of disentangling them. What he 



DIDEROT THE FILS NATUREL. 331 

wished to accomplish had either been accomplished, though 
not in France, or did not deserve to be accomplished, or was 
altogether impracticable. His attack on the formality and 
holiday primness of the dramatic probabilities, of the ex- 
cessive symmetry of the French versification, declamation, 
and mode of acting, was just; but, at the same time, he 
objected to all theatrical elevation, and refused to allow 
to the characters anything like a perfect mode of communi- 
cating what was passing within them. He nowhere assigns 
the reason why he held versification as not suitable, or 
prose as more suitable, to familiar tragedy; this has been 
extended by others, and among the rest, unfortunately, by 
Lessing, to every species of the drama ; but the ground for it 
evidently rests on nothing but the mistaken principles of 
illusion and nature, to which we have more than once ad- 
verted*. And if he gives an undue preference to the senti- 
mental drama and the familiar tragedy, species valuable in 
themselves, and susceptible of a truly poetic treatment; was 
not this on account of the application? The main thing, 
according to him, is not character and situations, but ranks 
of life and family relations, that spectators in similar ranks 
and relations may lay the example to heart. But this would 
put an end to everything like true enjoyment in art. Diderot 
recommended that the composition should have this direction, 
with the very view which, in the case of a historical tragedy 
founded on the events of their own times, met with the dis- 
approbation of the Athenians, and subjected its author Phry- 
nichus to their displeasure t. The view of a fire by night 
may, from the wonderful efiect produced by the combination 
of flames and darkness, fill the unconcerned spectator with 
delight; but when our neighbour's house is burning, — -jam 
proximus ardet Ucalegon — we shall hardly be disposed to see 
the affair in such a picturesque light. 

It is clear that Diderot was induced to take in his sail as he 
made way with his own dramatic attempts. He displayed 
the greatest boldness in an offensive publication of his youth, 
in which he wished to overturn the entire dramatic system of 
the French j he was less daring in the dialogues which accom- 

* I have stated and refuted them in a treatise On the Relation of the 
Fine Arts to Nature in the fifth number of the periodical work Prome- 
theus, pubUshed by Leo von Seckendorf. 

f See page 72. 



332 DIDEROT: HIS MANNER OF EXECUTION. 

pany tlie Fils Nature!, and he showed the greatest moderation 
in the treatise appended to the Pere de Famille. He carries 
his hostility a great deal too far with respect to the forms 
and the objects of the dramatic art. But in other respects 
he has not gone far enough : in his view of the Unities 
of Place and Time, and the mixture of seriousness and 
mirth, he has shown himself infected with the j)rejudices of 
his nation. 

The two pieces above mentioned, which obtained an un- 
merited reputation on their first appearance, have long since 
received their due appreciation. On the Fils Naturel Lessing 
has pronounced a severe sentence, without, however, censur- 
ing the scandalous plagiarism from Goldoni. But the Fere de 
Famille he calls an excellent piece, but has forgotten, how- 
ever, to assign any grounds for his opinion. Its defective 
plot and want of connexion have been well exposed by 
La Harpe. The execution of both pieces exhibits the utmost 
mannerism: the characters, which are anything but natural, 
become from their frigid prating about virtue in the most 
hypocritical style, and the tears which they are perpetually 
shedding, altogether intolerable. We Germans may justly 
say, Hinc illce lacrymce ! hence the unnecessary tears with 
which our stage has ever since been overflowed. The custom 
which has grown up of giving long and circumstantial direc- 
tions respecting the action, and which we owe also to Diderot, 
has been of the greatest detriment to dramatic eloquence. In 
this way the poet gives, as it were, an order on the player, 
instead of paying out of his own purse■■^ All good dramatists 
have uniformly had the action in some degree present to their 
minds ; but if the actor requires instruction on the subject, he 
will hardly possess the talent of following it up with the suit- 
able gestures. The speeches should be so framed that an intel- 
ligent actor could hardly fail to give them the proper action. 

It will be admitted, that long before Diderot there were 
.serious family pictures, affecting dramas, and familiar 
tragedies, much better than any which he was capable of 
executing. Voltaire, who could never rightly succeed in 
Comedy, gave in his Enfant Frodigue and Nanine a mixture 
of comic scenes and affecting situations, the latter of which are 

* I remember to have read the following direction in a German drama, 
■which is not worse than many others : — " He flashes lightning at him with 
his eyes {Er blitz t ihn mit den Auffen an) and goes off." 



LA CHAUSSEE — BEAUMARCHAIS. 333 

deserving of High praise. The affecting drama had been 
before attempted in France by La Chaussee. All this was in 
verse : and why not 1 Of the familiar tragedy (with the very 
same moral direction for which Diderot contended) several 
examples have been produced on the English stage : and one 
of them, Beverley, or the Gamester, is translated into French. 
The period of sentimentality was of some use to the affecting 
or sentimental drama; but the familiar tragedy was never 
very successful in France, where they were too much attached 
to brilliancy and pomp. The Melanie of La Harpe (to whom 
the stage of the present day owes Philoctete, the most faithful 
imitation of a Grecian piece) abounds with those painful 
impressions which form the rock this species may be said to 
split upon. The piece may perhaps be well adapted to 
enlighten the conscience of a father who has determined to 
force his daughter to enter a cloister; but to other spectators 
it can only be painful. 

Notwithstanding the opposition which Diderot experienced, 
he was however the founder of a sort of school of which the 
most distinguished names are Beaumarchais and Mercier. 
The former wrote only two pieces in the spirit of his prede- 
cessor — Eugenie, and La Mere Coupahle; and they display 
the very same faults. His acquaintance with Spain and the 
Spanish theatre led him to bring something new on the stage 
in the way of the piece of intrigue, a species which had long 
been neglected. These works were more distinguished by 
witty sallies than by humour of character ; but their greatest 
attraction consisted in the allusions to his own career as an 
author. The plot of the Barber of Seville is rather trite ; the 
Marriage of Figaro is planned with much more art, but the 
manners which it portrays are loose ; and it is also censurable 
in a poetical point of view, on account of the number of foreign 
excrescences with which it is loaded. In both French cha- 
racters are exhibited under the disguise of a Spanish costume, 
which, however, is very ill observed--'. The extraordinary 
applause which these pieces met with would lead to the con- 
clusion, that the French public do not hold the comedy of 
Intrigue in such low estimation as it is by the critics : but the 
means by which Beaumarchais pleased were certainly, in part 
at least, foreign to art. 

* The numerous sins of Beaumarchais against the Spanish manners and 
observances, are pointed out by De la Huerta in the introduction to his 
Teatro Espanol. 



334 TALMA MELO-DRAMA. 

The attempt of Ducis to make Lis countrymen acquainted 
with Shakspeare by modelling a few of his tragedies according 
to the French rules, cannot be accounted an enlargement of 
their theatre. We perceive here and there indeed the "torn 
members of the poet" — disjecta me^nibra 2:)oetce; but tlie whole 
is so constrained, disfigured, and, from the simple fulness of 
the original, tortured and twisted into such miserable intricacy, 
that even when the language is retained word for word, it 
ceases to convey its genuine meaning. The crowd which these 
tragedies attracted, especially from their affording an unusual 
room to the inimitable Talma for the display of his art, must 
be looked upon as no slight symptom of the people's dissatis- 
faction with their old works, and the want of o.thers more 
powerfully agitating. 

As the Parisian theatres are at present tied dowTi to cer- 
tain kinds, and as poetry has here a point of contact with the 
police, the numerous mixed and new attempts are for the most 
part banished to the subordinate theatres. Of these new at- 
tempts the Melo-dramas constitute a principal part. A statis- 
tical writer of the theatre informs us, that for a number of 
years back the new productions in Traged}'- and regular Comedy 
have been fewest, and that the melo-dramas have in number 
exceeded all the others put together. They do not mean by 
melo-drama, as we do, a drama in which the pauses are filled 
up by monologue with instrumental music, but where actions 
in any wise wonderful, adventurous, or even sensuous, are 
exhibited in emphatic prose with suitable decorations and 
dresses. Advantage might be taken of this prevailing in- 
clination to furnish a better description of entertainment: 
since most of the melo-dramas are unfortunately rude 
even to insipidity, and resenible abortive attempts at the 
romantic. 

In the sphere of dramatic literature the labours of a Le 
Mercier are undoubtedly deserving of the critic's attention. 
This able man endeavours to break through the prescribed 
limits in every possible way, and is so passionately fond of his 
art that nothing can deter him from it ; although almost every 
new attempt which he makes converts the pit into a regular 
field of battle^. 

* Since these Lectures were held, such a tumult arose in the theatre at 
Paris on the representation of his Clmstoplier Cohimhus, that several of the 
champions of Boileau came off with bruised heads and broken sliins. They 



THE HISTRIONIC ART IN FRANCE. 33 J 

From all this we may infer, tliat the inclinations of the 
French public, when they forget the duties they have imbibed 
from Boileau's ylr?; of Foetry, are not quite so hostile to the dra- 
matic liberties of other nations as might be supposed, and that 
tlie old and narrow system is chiefly upheld by a superstitious 
attachment to traditional opinions. 

The histrionic art, particularly in high comedy and tragedy, 
has been long carried in France to great perfection. In exter- 
nal dignity, quickness, correctness of memory, and in a won- 
derful degree of propriety and elegance in the delivery of 
verse, the best French actors are hardly to be surpassed. 
Their efforts to please are incredible: every moment they 
pass on the stage is a valuable opportunity, of which they 
must avail themselves. The extremely fastidious taste of a 
Paris pit, and the wholesome severity of the journalists, excite 
in them a spirit of incessant emulation ; and the circumstance 
of acting a number of classical works, which for generations 
have been in the possession of the stage, contributes also 
greatly to their excellence in their art. As the spectators 
have these works nearly by heart, their whole attention may 

were in the right to fight like desperadoes ; for if this piece had succeeded, 
it would have been all over with the consecrated Unities and good taste in 
the separation of the heroic and the low. The first act takes place in the 
house of Columbus, the second at the court of Isabella, the third and last 
on shipboard near the New World. The object of the poet was to show 
that the man in whom any grand idea originates is everywhere opposed and 
thwarted by the limited and common-place views of other men; but that the 
strength of his enthusiasm enables him to overcome all obstacles. In his 
own house, and among his acquaintances, Columbus is considered as 
insane ; at court he obtains with difficulty a lukewarm support ; in his 
own vessel a mutiny is on the point of breaking out, when the wished-for 
land is discovered, and the piece ends with the exclamation of " Land, 
land !" All this is conceived and planned very skilfully ; but in the execu- 
tion, however, there are numerous defects. In another piece not yet acted 
or printed, called La Journee des Dupes, which I heard the author read, he 
has painted with historical truth, both in regard to circumstances and the 
spirit of the age, a well-known but unsuccessful court-cabal against Car- 
dinal RicheUeu. It is a political comedy, in which the rag-gatherer and 
the king express themselves in language suitable to their stations. The 
poet has, with the greatest ingenuity, shown the manner in which trivial 
causes assist or impede the execution of a great political design, the dis- 
simulation practised by political personages towards others, and even 
towards themselves, and the different tones which tuey assume according to 
circumstances ; in a word, he has exhibited the whole inward aspect of the 
game of politics. 



336 THE HISTRIONIC ART IN FRANCE. 

be directed to the acting, aud every faulty syllable meets in 
this way with immediate detection and reprobation. 

In high comedy the social refinement of the nation afiords 
great advantages to their actors. But with respect to tragical 
composition^ the art of the actor should also accommodate it- 
self to the spirit of the poetry. I am inclined to doubt, how- 
ever, whether this is the case with the French actors, and 
whether the authors of the tragedies, especially those of the 
age of Louis XIV. would altogether recognise themselves in 
the mode in which these compositions are a.t present repre« 
sented. 

The tragic imitation and recitation of the French oscillate 
between two opposite extremes, the first of which is occar 
sioned by the prevailing tone of the piece, while the second 
seems rather to be at variance with it, — between measured 
formality and extravagant boisterousness. The first might 
formerly preponderate, but the balance is now on the other side. 

Let us hear Voltaire's description of the manner in which, 
in the time of Louis XIV., Augustus delivered his discourse 
to Cinna and Maximus. Augustus entered with the step of a 
braggadocio, his head covered with a four-cornered peruque, 
whicb hung down to his girdle ; the peruque was stuck full of 
laurel leaves, and above this he wore a large hat with a dou- 
ble row of red feathers. He seated himself on a huge fau- 
teuil, two steps high, Cinna and Maximus on two low chairs ; 
and the pompous declamation fully corresponded to the osten- 
tatious manner in which he made his appearance. As at that 
time, and even long afterwards, tragedies were acted in a 
court-dress of the newest fashion, with large cravats, swords, 
and hats, no other movements v/ere practicable but such as 
were cJlowable in an antechamber, or, at most, a slight waving 
of the hand ; and it was even considered a bold theatrical 
attempt, when, in the last scene of Polyeucte, Severus entered 
with his hat on his head for the purpose of accusing Felix of 
treachery, and the latter listened to him with his hat under 
Lis arm. 

However, there were even early examples of an extrava- 
gance of an opposite description. In the Mariamne of 
Mairet, an older poet than Corneille, the player who acted 
Herod, roared himself to death. This ma}^, indeed, be called 
" out-heroding Herod ! " When Voltaire was instructing an 
actress in some tragic part, she said to him, " Were I to play 



THE HISTRIONIC ART IN FRANCE — CONCLUSION. 337 

in this manner, sir, they would say the devil was in me." — 
•" Very right," answered Voltaire, " an actress ought to have 
the devil in her." This expression proves, at least, no very 
keen sense for that dignity and sweetness which in an ideal 
composition, such as the French Tragedy pretends to be, 
ought never to be lost sight of, even in the wildest whirlwind 
of passion. 

I found occasionally, even in the action of the very best 
players of the present day, sudden leaps from the measured 
solemnity in recitation and gesticulation which the general 
tone of the composition required, to a boisterousness of pas- 
sion absolutely convulsive, without any due preparation or 
softening by intervening gradations. They are led to this by 
a sort of obscure feeling, that the conventional forms of poetry 
generally impede the movements of nature; when the poet 
any where leaves them at liberty, they then indemnify them- 
selves for the former constraint, and load, as it were, this rare 
moment of abandonment with the whole amount of life and 
animation which had been kept back, and which ought to have 
been equally diffused over the whole. Hence their convulsive 
and obstreperous violence. In bravura they take care not to be 
deficient ; but they frequently lose sight of the true spirit of 
the composition. In general, (with the single exception of the 
great Talma,) they consider their parts as a sort of mosaic 
work of brilliant passages, and they rather endeavour to make 
the most of each separate passage, independently of the rest, 
than to go back to the invisible central point of the character, 
and to consider every expression of it as an emanation from 
that point. They are always afraid of underdoing their 
parts ; and hence they are worse qualified for reserved action, 
for eloquent silence, where, under an appearance of outward 
tranquillity, the most hidden emotions of the mind are be- 
trayed. However, this is a part which is seldom imposed on 
them by their poets ; and if the cause of such excessive vio- 
lence in the expression of passion is not to be found in the 
works themselves, they at all events occasion the actor to lay- 
greater stress on superficial brilliancy than on a profound 
knowledge of character*. 

* See a treatise of M. Von Humboldt the elder, in Goethe's Propyl'den, 
on the French acting, equally distinguished for a refined and solid spirit of 
observation. 



338 THE ENGLISH AND SPANISH DRAMA. 



LECTURE XXII. 

Comparison of the English and Spanish Theatres — Spirit of the Romantif 
Drama — Shakspeare — His age and the circumstances of his Life. 

In conformity with tlie plan wliicli we laid down at the first, we 
shall now proceed to treat of the English and Spanish theatres. 
We have been, on various occasions, compelled in passing to 
allude cursorily, sometimes to the one and sometimes to the 
other, partly for the sake of placing, by means of contrast, 
many ideas in a clearer light, and partly on account of the 
influence which these stages have had on the theatres of other 
countries. Both the English and Spaniards possess a very 
rich dramatic literature, both have had a number of prolific 
and highly talented dramatists, among whom even the least 
admired and celebrated, considered as a whole, display uncom- 
mon aptitude for dramatic animation, and insight into the 
essence of theatrical effect. The history of their theatres has 
no connexion with that of the Italians and French, for they 
developed themselves wholly out of the abundance of their 
own intrinsic energy, without any foreign infl,uence: the 
attempts to bring them back to an imitation of the ancients, 
or even of the French, have either been attended with no 
success, or not been made till a late period in the decay of the 
drama. The formation of these two stages, again, is equally 
independent of each other ; the Spanish poets were altogether 
unacquainted with the English ; and in the older and most 
important period of the English theatre I could discover no 
trace of any knowledge of Spanish plays, (though their novels 
and romances were certainly known,) and it was not till the 
time of Charles II. that translations from Calderou first made 
their appearance. 

So many things among men have been handed down from 
century to century and from nation to nation, and the hu- 
man mind is in general so slow to invent, that originality 
in any department of mental exertion is everywhere a rare 
phenomenon. We are desirous of seeing the result of the 
efforts of inventive geniuses when, regardless of what in the 
same line has elsewhere been carried to a high degree of per- 
fection, they set to work in good earnest to invent altogether for 
themselves ; when they lay the foundation of the new edifice 
on uncovered ground^ and draw all the preparations, all the 



ORIGINAL AND NATIONAL CHARACTER. 339 

building materials, from tlieir own resources. "We participate, 
in some measure, in the joy of success, wlien we see them 
advance rapidly from their first helplessness and need to a 
finished mastery in their art. The history of the Grecian 
theatre would afford us this cheering prospect could we wit- 
ness its rudest beginnings, which were not preserved, for they 
were not even committed to writing; but it is easy, when we 
compare together iEschylus and Sophocles, to form some idea 
of the preceding period. The Greeks neither inherited nor 
borrowed their dramatic art from any other people; it was 
original and native, and for that very reason was it able to 
produce a living and powerful effect. But it ended with the 
period when Greeks imitated Greeks; namely, when the 
Alexandrian poets began learnedly and critically to compose 
dramas after the model of the great tragic writers. The 
reverse of this was the case with the Eomans : they received 
the form and substance of their dramas from the Greeks; 
they never attempted to act according to their own discretion, 
and to express their own way of thinking; and hence they 
occupy so insignificant a place in the history of dramatic art. 
Among the nations of modern Europe, the English and Spa- 
niards alone (for the German stage is but forming), possess as 
yet a theatre entirely original and national, which, in its 
own peculiar shape, has arrived at maturity. 

Those critics who consider the authority of the ancients 
as models to be such, that in poetry, as in all the other arts, 
there can be no safety out of the pale of imitation, afiirm, that 
as the nations in question have not followed this course, they 
have brought nothing but irregular works on the stage, which, 
though they may possess occasional passages of splendour and 
beauty, must yet, as a whole, be for ever reprobated as bar- 
barous, and wanting in form. We have already, in the intro- 
ductory part of these Lectures, stated our sentiments generally 
on this way of thinking ; but we must now examine the sub- 
ject somewhat more closely. 

If the assertion be well founded, all that distinguishes the 
works of the greatest English and Spanish dramatists, a 
Shakspeare and a Calderon, must rank them far below the 
ancients ; they could in no wise be of importance for theory, 
and would at most appear remarkable, on the assumption that 
the obstinacy of these nations in refusing to comply with the 
rules, may have afforded a more ample field to the poets to 

y 2 



340 THE SPIRIT OP POETRY. 

display tlieir uative originality, though at the expense of art. 
But even this assumption, on a closer examination, appears 
extremely questionable. The poetic spirit requires to be 
limited, that it may move with a becoming liberty, within its 
proper precincts, as has been felt by all nations on the first 
invention of metre; it must act according to laws derivable 
from its own essence, otherwise its strength will evaporate in 
boundless vacuity. 

The works of genius cannot therefore be permitted to be 
without form ; but of this there is no danger. However, that 
w^e may answer this objection of want of form, we must 
understand the exact meaning of the term form, since most 
critics, and more especially those who insist on a stiff regu- 
larity, interpret it merely in a mechanical, and not in an orga- 
nical sense. Form is mechanical when, through external force, 
it is imparted to any material merely as an accidental addition 
■without reference to its quality; as, for example, when we 
give a particular shape to a soft mass that it may retain the 
same after its induration. Organical form, again, is innate ; 
it unfolds itself from within, and acquires its determination 
contemporaneously with the perfect development of the germ. 
We everywhere discover such forms in nature throughout 
the whole range of living powers, from the crystallization of 
salts and minerals to plants and flowers, and from these 
again to the human body. In the fine arts, as well as in the 
domain of nature — the supreme artist, all genuine forms are 
organical, that is, determined by the quality of the work. 
In a word, the form is nothing but a siguificant exterior, the 
speaking physiognomy of each thing, which, as long as it is 
not disfigured by any destructive accident, gives a true evi- 
dence of its hidden essence. 

Hence it is evident that the spirit of poetry, which, though 
imperishable, migrates, as it were, through different bodies, 
must, so often as it is newly born in the human race, mould to 
itself, out of the nutrimental substance of an altered age, a 
body of a different conformation. The forms vary with the 
direction taken by the poetical sense; and when we give to 
the new kinds of poetry the old names, and judge of them 
according to the ideas conveyed by these names, the applica- 
tion which we make of the authority of classical antiquity is 
altogether unjustifiable. No one should be tried before a tri- 
bunal to which he is not amenable. We may safely admit. 



THE ENGLISH AND SPANISH THEATRES. 341 

tliat the most of the English and Spanish dramatic works are 
neither tragedies nor comedies in the sense of the ancients : 
they are romantic dramas. That the stage of a people who, 
in its foundation and formation, neither knew nor wished to 
know anything of foreign models, will possess many peculia- 
rities ; and not only deviate from, but even exhibit a striking 
contrast to, the theatres of other nations who had a common 
model for imitation before their eyes, is easily supposable, and 
we should only be astonished were it otherwise. But when 
in two nations, differing so widely as the English and Spanish, 
in physical, moral, political, and religious respects, the the- 
atres (which, without being known to each other, arose about 
the same time,) possess, along with external and internal 
diversities, the most striking features of affinity, the attention 
even of the most thoughtless cannot but be turned to this phe- 
nomenon; and the conjecture will naturally occur, that the 
same, or, at least, a kindred principle must have prevailed in 
the de^/elopment of both. This comparison, however, of the 
English and Spanish theatre, in their common contrast with 
every dramatic literature which has grown up out of an imita- 
tion of the ancients, has, so far as we know, never yet been 
attempted. Could we raise from the dead a countryman, 
contemporary, and intelligent admirer of Shakspeare, and 
another of Calderon, and introduce to their acquaintance the 
works of the poet to which in life they were strangers, they 
would both, without doubt, considering the subject rather from 
a national than a general point of view, enter with difficulty 
into the above idea, and have many objections to urge against 
it. But here a reconciling criticism * must step in ; and this, 
perhaps, may be best exercised by a German, who is free from 
the national peculiarities of either Englishmen or Spaniards, yet 
by inclination friendly to both, and prevented by no jealousy 
from acknowledging the greatness which, has been earlier ex- 
hibited in other countries than in his own. 

The similarity of the English and Spanish theatres does not 

* This appropriate expression was, if we mistake not, first used by 
M. Adam Miiller in his Lectures on German Science and Literature. If, 
however, he gives himself out for the inventor of the thing itself, he is, to 
use the softest word, in error. Long before him other Germans had en- 
deavoured to reconcile the contrarieties of taste of different ages and 
nations, and to pay due homage to all genuine poetry and art. Between 
good and bad, it is true, no reconciliation is possible. 



Si2 THE ROMANTIC DRAMA ORIGIN AND ESSENCE. 

consist merely in the bold neglect of the Unities of Place and 
Time, and in the commixture of comic and tragic elements : 
that they were unwilling or unable to comply with the rules 
and with right reason, (in the meaning of certain critics these 
terms are equivalent,) may be considered as an evidence 
of merely negative properties. The ground of the resemblance 
lies far deeper, in the inmost substance of the fictions, and in 
the essential relations, through which every deviation of form 
becomes a true requisite, which, together with its validity, has 
also its significance. What they have in common with each 
other is the spirit of the romantic poetry, giving utterance to 
itself in a dramatic shape. However, to explain ourselves 
with due precision, the Spanish theatre, in our opinion, down 
to its decline and fall in the commencement of the eighteenth 
century, is almost entirely romantic; the English is com- 
pletely so in Shakspeare alone, its founder and greatest mas- 
ter : in later poets the romantic principle appears more or less 
degenerated, or is no longer perceivable, although the march 
of dramatic composition introduced by virtue of it has been, out- 
wardly at least, pretty generally retained. The manner in 
which the different ways of thinking of the two nations, one a 
northern and the other a southern, have been expressed; the 
former endowed with a gloomy, the latter with a glowing ima- 
gination ; the one nation possessed of a scrutinizing seriousness 
disposed to withdraw within themselves, the other impelled 
ourwardly by the violence of passion ; the mode in which all 
this has been accomplished will be most satisfactorily ex- 
plained at the close of this section, when we come to institute 
a parallel between Shakspeare and Calderon, the only two 
poets who are entitled to be called great. 

Of the origin and essence of the romantic I treated in my 
first Lecture, and I shall here, therefore, merely briefly men- 
tion the subject. The ancient art and poetry rigorously sepa- 
rate things which are dissimilar; the romantic delights in 
indissoluble mixtures; all contrarieties : nature and art, poe- 
try and prose, seriousness and mirth, recollection and antici- 
pation, spirituality and sensuality, terrestrial and celestial, 
life and death, are by it blended together in the most intimate 
combination. As the oldest lawgivers delivered their manda- 
tory instructions and prescriptions in measured melodies; as 
this is fabulously ascribed to Orpheus, the first softener of the 
yet untamed race of mortals ; in like manner the whole of the 



ANTIQUE TRAGEDY AND SCULPTURE COMPARISON. 343 

ancient poetry and art is, as it were, a rhythmical nomos 
(law), an harmonious promulgation of the permanently estab- 
lished legislation of a world submitted to a beautiful order, 
and reflecting in itself the eternal images of things. Romantic 
poetry, on the other hand, is the expression of the secret 
attraction to a chaos which lies concealed in the very bosom 
of the ordered universe, and is perpetually striving after new 
and marvellous births; the life-giving spirit of primal love 
broods here anew on the face of the waters. The former is 
more simple, clear, and like to nature in the self-existent per- 
fection of her separate works; the latter, notwithstanding its 
fragmentary appearance, approaches more to the secret of the 
universe. For Conception can only comprise each object 
separately, but nothing in truth can ever exist separately and 
by itself; Feeling perceives all in all at one and the same time. 

Respecting the two species of poetry with which we are 
here principally occupied, we compared the ancient Tragedy 
to a group in sculpture: the figures corresponding to the cha- 
racters, and their grouping to the action; and to these two 
in both productions of art is the consideration exclusively 
directed, as being all that is properly exhibited. But the 
romantic drama must be viewed as a large picture, where not 
merely figure and motion are exhibited in larger, richer groups, 
but where even all that surrounds the figures must also be por- 
trayed; where we see not merely the nearest objects, but are 
indulged with the prospect of a considerable distance ; and all 
this under a magical light, which assists in giving to the im- 
pression the particular character desired. 

Such a picture must be bounded less perfectly and less dis- 
tinctly, than the group ; for it is like a fragment cut out of 
the optic scene of the world. However the painter, by the 
setting of his foreground, by throwing the whole of his light 
into the centre, and by other means of fixing the point of 
view, will learn that he must neither wander beyond the com- 
position, nor omit any thing within it. 

In the representation of figure. Painting cannot compete 
with Sculpture, since the former can only exhibit it by a 
deception and from a single point of view; but, on the other 
hand, it communicates more life to its imitations, by colours 
which in a picture are made to imitate the lightest shades of 
mental expression in the countenance. The look, which can 
be given only very imperfectly by Sculpture, enables us to 



344 ARTISTIC VIEW OF THE ROMANTIC DRAMA, 

read much deeper in tlie mind, and to perceive its lightest 
movements. Its peculiar charm, in short, consists in this, 
that it enables us to see in bodily objects what is least cor- 
poreal, namely, light and air. 

The very same description of beauties are peculiar to the 
romantic drama. It does not (like the Old Tragedy) separate 
seriousness and the action, in a rigid manner, from among the 
whole ingredients of life; it embraces at once the whole of the 
.. chequered drama of life with all its circumstances ; and while 
it seems only to represent subjects brought accidentally toge- 
ther, it satisfies the unconscious requisitions of fancy, buries 
us in reflections on the inexpressible signification of the objects 
which we view blended by order, nearness and distance, light 
and colour, into one harmonious whole ; and thus lends, as it 
^ were, a soul to the prospect before us. 

The change of time and of place, (supposing its influence on 
the mind to be included in the picture; and that it comes to 
the aid of the theatrical perspective, with reference to what is 
indicated in the distance, or half-concealed by intervening 
objects;) the contrast of sport and earnest (supposing that in 
degree and kind they bear a proportion to each other;) 
finali}^, the mixture of the dialogical and the lyrical elements, 
(by which the poet is enabled, more or less perfectly, to trans- 
form his personages into poetical beings :) these, in my 
opinion, are not mere licenses, but true beauties in the roman- 
tic drama. In all these points, and in many others also, the 
English and Spanish works, which are pre-eminently worthy 
of this title of Romantic, fully resemble each other, however 
diflferent they may be in other respects. 

Of the two we shall first notice the English theatre, because 
it arrived earlier at maturity than the Spanish. In both 
we must occupy ourselves almost exclusively with a single 
artist, with Shakspeare in the one and Calderon in the other; 
but not in the same order with each, for Shakspeare stands 
first and earliest among the English ; any remarks we may 
have to make on earlier or contemporary antiquities of the 
English stage may be made in a review of his history. But 
Calderon had many predecessors; he is at once the summit 
and the close nearly of dramatic art in Spain. 

The wish to speak with the brevity which the limits of my 
plan demand, of a poet to the study of whom I have de- 
voted many years of my life, places me in no little embar- 



THE ENGLISH THEATRE: SHAKSPEARE. 345 

rassment. I know not where to begin ; for I should never be 
able to end, were I to say all that I have felt and thought on 
the perusal of his works. With the poet as with the man, .a 
more than ordinary intimacy prevents us, perhaps, from put- 
ting ourselves in the place of those who are first forming an 
acquaintance with him : we are too familiar with his most 
striking peculiarities, to be able to pronounce upon the first 
impression which they are calculated to make on others. On 
the other hand, we ought to possess, and to have the power of 
communicating, more correct ideas of his mode of procedure, 
of his concealed or less obvious views, and of the meaning and 
import of his labours, than others whose acquaintance with 
him is more limited. 

Shakspeare is the pride of his nation. A late poet has, 
with propriety, called him " the genius of the British isles." He 
was the idol of his contemporaries : during the interval indeed 
of puritanical fanaticism, which broke out in the next genera- 
tion, and rigorously proscribed all liberal arts and literature, and 
during the reign of the Second Charles, when his works were 
either not acted at all, or if so, very much changed and disfi- 
gured, his fame was awhile obscured, only to shine forth again 
about the beginning of the last century with more than its ori- 
ginal brightness; and since tlien it has but increased in lustre 
with the course of time ; and for centuries to come, (I speak it 
with the greatest confidence,) it will, like an Alpine avalanche, 
continue to gather strength at every moment of its progress. 
Of the future extension of his fame, the enthusiasm with which 
he was naturalized in Germany, the moment that he was 
known, is a significant earnest. In the South of Europe*, his 
language, and the great difficulty of translating him with fide- 
lity, will be, perhaps, an invincible obstacle to his general dif- 
fusion. In England, the greatest actors vie with each other 
in the impersonation of his characters; the printers in splen- 
did editions of his works ; and the painters in transferring his. 
scenes to the canvas. Like Dante, Shakspeare has received 
the perhaps indispensable but still cumbersome honour of 
being treated like a classical author of antiquity. The oldest 
editions have been carefully collated, and where the readings 

* This difficulty extends also to France ; for it must not be supposed 
that a literal translation can ever be a faithful one. Mrs. Montague ha& 
done enough to prove how wretchedly, even Voltaire, in his rhymeless 
Alexandrines, has translated a few passages from Hamlet and the first act 
of Julius Ccesar. 



346 SHAKSPEARE — THE LITERATURE OF HIS AGE. 

seemed corrupt, many corrections have been suggested ; and 
the whole literature of his age has been drawn forth from the 
oblivion to which it had been consigned, for the sole purpose 
of explaining the phrases, and illustrating the allusions of 
Shakspeare. Commentators have succeeded one another in 
such number, that their labours alone, with the critical con- 
troversies to which they have given rise, constitute of them- 
selves no inconsiderable library. These labours deserve both 
our praise and gratitude; and more especially the historical 
investigations into the sources from which Shakspeare drew the 
materials of his plays, and also into the previous and contem- 
porary state of the English stage, and other kindred subjects 
of inquiry. With respect, however, to their merely philolo- 
gical criticisms, I am frequently compelled to differ from the 
commentators; and where, too, considering him simply as a 
poet, they endeavour to enter into his views and to decide 
upon his merits, I must separate myself from them entirely. 
I have hardly ever found either truth or profundity in their 
remarks; and these critics seem to me to be but stammering 
interpreters of the general and almost idolatrous admiration 
of his countrymen. There may be people in England who 
entertain the same views of them with myself, at least it is a 
well-known fact that a satirical poet has represented Shaks- 
peare, under the hands of his commentators, by Actseon wor- 
ried to death by his own dogs ; and, following up the story of 
Ovid, designated a female writer on the great poet as the 
snarling Lycisca. 

We shall endeavour, in the first place, to remove some of 
these false views, in order to clear the way for our own 
homage, that we may thereupon offer it the more freely with- 
out let or hindrance. 

From all the accounts of Shakspeare which have come 
down to us, it is clear that his contemporaries knew well the 
treasure they jjossessed in him ; and that they felt and under- 
stood him better than most of those who succeeded him. In 
those days a work was generally ushered into the world with 
Commendatory Verses ; and one of these, prefixed to an early 
edition of Shakspeare, by an unknown author, contains some 
of the most beautiful and happy lines that ever were applied 
to any poet*. An idea, however, soon became prevalent that 
Shakspeare was a rude and wild genius, who poured forth at 

* It begins with the words : A mind reflecting' ages past, and is sub- 
scribed, I.M.S. 



SHAKSPEARE HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 347 

random, and without aim or object, his unconnected pomposi- 
tions. Ben Jonson, a younger contemporary and rival of 
Shakspeare, who laboured in the sweat of his brow, but with 
no great success, to expel the romantic drama from the 
English stage, and to form it on the model of the ancients, 
gave it as his opinion that Shakspeare did not blot enough, 
and that as he did not possess much school-learning, he owed 
more to nature than to art. The learned, and sometimes 
rather pedantic Milton was also of this opinion, when he says. 

Our sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child, 
Warbles his native wood-notes wild. 

Yet it is highly honourable to Milton, that the sweetness of 
Shakspeare, the quality which of all others has been least 
allowed, was felt and acknowledged by him. The modern, 
editors, both in their prefaces, which may be considered as so 
many rhetorical exercises in praise of the poet, and in their 
remarks on separate passages, go still farther. Judging them 
by principles which are not applicable to them, not only do 
they admit the irregularity of his pieces, but on occasions they 
accuse him of bombast, of a confused, un grammatical, and 
conceited mode of writing, and even of the most contemptible 
buffoonery. Pope asserts that he wrote both better and 
worse than any other man. All the scenes and passages 
which did not square with the littleness of his own taste, he 
wished to place to the account of interpolating players ; and 
he was in the right road, had his opinion been taken, of 
giving us a miserable dole of a mangled Shakspeare. It is, 
therefore, not to be wondered at if foreigners, with the excep- 
tion of the Germans latterly, have, in their ignorance of him, 
even improved upon these opinions ^>'. They speak in general 
of Shakspeare's plays as monstrous productions, which could 
only have been given to the world by a disordered imagina- 
tion in a barbarous age ; and Voltaire crowns the whole with 
more than usual assurance, when he observes that Hamlet, the 
profound master-piece of the philosophical poet, " seems the 

* Lessing was the first to speak of Shakspeare in a becoming tone ; but 
he said unfortunately a great deal too little of him, as in the time when he 
wrote the Dramaturgie this poet had not yet appeared on our stage. 
Since that time he has been more particularly noticed by Herder in the 
Blatter von deutscher Art und Kunst ; Goethe, in Wilhehn Meister ; 
and Tieck, m Letters on Shakspeare (Poetisches Journal, 1800), which 
break off, however, almost at the commencement. 



348 SHAKSPEARE — OPINION OF FOREIGNERS — VOLTAIRE. 

work of a drunken savage." That foreigners, and in particu- 
lar Frenchmen, who ordinarily speak the most strange lan- 
guage of antiquity and the middle ages, as if canuil^alism had 
only been put an end to in Europe by Louis XIV. should 
entertain this opinion o£ Shakspeare, might be pardonable; 
but that Englishmen should join in calumniating that glorious 
epoch of their history*, which laid the foundation of their 
national greatness, is incomprehensible. Shakspeare flourished 
and wrote in the last half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and 
first half of that of James I. ; and, consequently, under mo- 
narchs who were learned themselyes, and held literature in 
honour. The policy of modern Europe, by which the rela- 
tions of its different states have been so variously interwoven 
with each other, commenced a century before. The cause of 
the Protestants was decided by the accession of Elizabeth to 
the throne; and the attachment to the ancient belief cannot 
therefore be urged as a proof of the prevailing darkness. 
Such Avas the zeal for the study of the ancients, that even 
court ladies, and the queen herself, were acquainted with Latin 
and Greek, and taught even to speak the former; a degree of 
knowledge which we should in vain seek for in the courts of 
Europe at the present day. The trade and navigation which 
the English carried on with all the four quarters of the world, 
made them acquainted with the customs and mental produc- 
tions of other nations; and it would appear that they were 
then more indulgent to foreign manners than they are in the 
present day. Italy had already produced all nearly that 
still distinguishes her literature, and in England translations 
in verse were diligently, and even successfully, executed from 
the Italian. Spanish literature also was not unknown, for it 
is certain that Don Quixote was read in England soon after 
its first appearance. Bacon, the founder of modern experi- 

* The English work with, which foreigners of every country are jierhaps 
best acquainted is Hume's History ; and there we have a most unjustifiable 
account both of Shakspeare and his age. " Bom in a rude age, and edu- 
cated in the lowest manner, without any instruction either yrom the world 
or from books." How could a man of Hume's acuteness suppose for a 
moment that a poet, whose characters display such an intimate acquaint- 
ance with life, who, as an actor and manager of a theatre, must have come 
in contact with all descriptions of individuals, had no instru.ction from the 
world .' But tliis is not the worst ; he goes even so far as to say, " a rea- 
sonable propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold." This is 
nearly as offensive as Voltaire's " drunken savage." — Trans. 



SHAKSPEARE — TONE OF SOCIETY IN HIS DAY. 340 

mental philosophy, and of whom it may be said, that he car- 
ried in his pocket all that even in this eighteenth century 
merits the name of philosophy, was a contemporary of Shak- 
speare. His fame, as a writer, did not, indeed, break forth 
into its glory till after his death ; but what a number of ideas 
must have been in circulation before such an author could 
arise ! Many branches of human knowledge have, since that 
time, been more extensively cultivated, but such branches 
as are totally unproductive to poetry : chemistry, mechanics, 
manufactures, and rural and political economy, will never 
enable a man to become a poet. I have elsewhere* examined 
into the pretensions of modern enlightenment, as it is called, 
which looks with such contempt on all preceding ages ; I have 
shown that at bottom it is all little, superficial, and unsub- 
stantial. The pride of what has been called the existing 
maturity of human intensity, has come to a miserable end; 
and the structures erected by those pedagogues of the human 
race have fallen to pieces like the baby-houses of children. 

With regard to the tone of society in Shakspeare's day, it 
is necessary to remark that there is a wide diiFerence between 
true mental cultivation and what is called polish. That arti- 
ficial polish which puts an end to every thing like free original 
communication, and subjects all intercourse to the insipid 
uniformity of certain rules, was undoubtedly wholly unknown 
to the age of Shakspeare, as in a great measure it still is at 
the present day in England. It possessed, on the other hand, 
a fulness of healthy vigour, which showed itself always with 
boldness, and sometimes also with petulance. The spirit of 
chivalry was not yet wholly extinct, and a queen, who was 
far more jealous in exacting homage to her sex than to her 
throne, and who, with her determination, wisdom, and mag- 
nanimity, was in fact, well qualified to inspire the minds of 
her subjects with an ardent enthusiasm, inflamed that spirit 
to the noblest love of glory and renown. The feudal inde- 
pendence also still survived in some measure; the nobility 
vied with each other in splendour of dress and number of 
retinue, and every great lord had a sort of small court of his 
own. The distinction of ranks was as yet strongly marked: 
a state of things ardently to be desired by the dramatic poet. 
In conversation they took pleasure in quick and unexpected 
answers; and the witty sally passed rapidly like a ball from 
* In my Lectures on the Spirit of the Age. 



S50 SHAESPEARE — HIS REPARTEES — nAMLET. 

moutli to moutli, till the merry game could no longer be kept 
up. ThiS; and the abuse of the play on words, (of which 
King James was himself rery fond, and we need not therefore 
wonder at the universality of the mode,) may, doubtless, be 
considered as instances of a bad taste; but to take them for 
isymptoms of rudeness and barbarity, is not less absurd than 
to infer the poverty of a people from their luxurious extrava- 
gance. These strained repartees are frequently employed by 
Shakspeare, with the view of painting the actual tone of the 
society in his day; it does not, however, follow, that they met 
with his approbation; on the contrary, it clearly appears that 
he held them in derision. Hamlet says, in the scene with the 
Gravedigger, " By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have 
taken note of it: the age is grown so picked, that the toe of 
the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his 
kibe." And Lorenzo, in the Merchant of Venice, alluding to 
Launcelot: 

O dear discretion, how Ms words are suited ! 

The fool hath planted in his memory 

An ai-my of good words : and I do know 

A many fools, that stand in better place, 

Garnish' d like him, that for a tricksy word; 

Defy the matter. 

Besides, Shakspeare, in a thousand places, lays great and 
marked stress on correct and refined tone of society, and 
lashes every deviation from it, whether of boorishness or 
affected foppery; not only does he give admirable discourses 
on it, but he represents it in all its shades and modifications 
by rank, age, oi^ sex. What foundation is there, then, for the 
alleged barbarity of his age ? Its offences against propriety? 
But if this is to be admitted as a test, then the ages of 
Pericles and Augustus must also be described as rude and 
uncultivated; for Aristophanes and Horace, who both were 
considered as models of urbanity, display, at times, the 
coarsest indelicacy. On this subject, the diversity in the 
moral feeling of ages depends on other causes. Shakspeare, 
it is true, sometimes introduces us to improper company; at 
others, he suffers ambiguous expressions to escape in the 
presence of women, and even from women themselves. This 
species of petulance was probably not then unusual. He 
certainly did not indulge in it merely to please the multitude, 
for in many of his pieces there is not the slightest trace of 
this sort to be found : and in what virgin purity are many of 



SHAKSPEARE— SOCIAL CULTIVATION OF HIS AGE. 351 

his female parts worked out! Wlien we see the liberties 
taken by other dramatic poets in England in his time, and 
even much later, we must account him comparatively chaste 
and moral. Neither must we overlook certain circumstances 
in the existing state of the theatre. The female parts were 
not acted by women, but by boys; and no person of the fair 
sex appeared in the theatre without a mask. Under such a 
carnival disguise, much might be heard by them, and much 
might be ventured to be said in their presence, which in 
other circumstances would have been absolutely improper. 
It is certainly to be wished that decency should be observed 
on all public occasions, and conse(][uently also on the stage. 
But even in this it is possible to go too far. That carping 
cen seriousness which scents out impurity in every bold sally, 
is, at best, but an ambiguous criterion of purity of morals ; 
and beneath this hypocritical guise there often lurks the con- 
sciousness of an impure imagination. The determination to 
tolerate nothing which has the least reference to the sensual 
relation between the sexes, may be carried to a pitch ex- 
tremely oppressive to a dramatic poet, and highly prejudicial 
to the boldness and freedom of his compositions. If such 
considerations were to be attended to, many of the happiest 
parts of Shakspeare's plays, for example, in Measure for Mea- 
sure, and A IV s Well that Ends Well, which, nevertheless, are 
handled with a due regard to decencyj must be set aside as 
sinning against this would-be propriety. 

Had no other monument of the age of Elizabeth come down 
to us than the works of Shakspeare, I should, from them 
alone, have formed the most favourable idea of its state of 
social culture and enlightenment. When those who look 
through such strange spectacles as to see nothing in them but 
rudeness and barbarity cannot deny what I have now histori- 
cally proved, they are usually driven to this last resource, 
and demand, " What has Shakspeare to do with the mental 
culture of his age? He had no share in it. Born in an infe- 
rior rank, ignorant and uneducated, he passed his life in low 
society, and laboured to please a vulgar audience for his 
bread, without ever dreaming of fame or posterity." 

In all this there is not a single word of truth, though it has 
been repeated a thousand times. It is true we know very 
little of the poet's life; and what we do know consists for the 
most part of raked-up and chiefly suspicious anecdotes, of such 



352 SHAKSPEARE — CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS LIFE. 

a description nearly as tliose which are told at inns to inqui- 
sitive strangers^, who visit the birthplace or neighbourhood of 
a celebrated man. Within a very recent period some original 
documents have been brought to light, and among them his 
will, which give us a peep into his family concerns. It be- 
trays more than ordinary deficiency of critical acumen in 
Shakspeare's commentators, that none of them, so far as we 
know, have ever thought of availing themselves of his sonnets 
for tracing the circumstances of his life. These sonnets paint 
most unequivocally the actual situation and sentiments of the 
poet ; they make us acquainted with the passions of the man ; 
they even contain remarkable confessions of his youthful 
errors. Shakspeare's father was a man of property, whose 
ancestors had held the ofEce of alderman and bailiff in Strat- 
ford, and in a diploma from the Heralds' Office for the renewal 
or confirmation of his coat of arms, he is styled gentleman. 
Our poet, the oldest son but third child, could not, it is true, 
receive an academical education, as he married when hardly 
eighteen, probably from mere family considerations. This 
retired and unnoticed life he continued to lead but a few 
years; and he was either enticed to London from wearisom- 
ness of his situation, or banished from home, as it is said, 
in consequence of his irregularities. There he assumed the 
profession of a player, which he considered at first as a degra- 
dation, principally, perhaps, because of the wild excesses* into 
which he was seduced by the example of his comrades. It 
is extremely probable, that the poetical fame which in the 
progress of his career he afterwards acquired, greatly con- 
tributed to ennoble the stage, and to bring the player's pro- 
fession into better repute. Even at a very early age he 
endeavoured to distinguish himself as a poet in other walks 
than those of the stage, as is proved by his juvenile poems of 
Adonis and Lucrece. He quickly rose to be a sharer or joint 
proprietor, and also manager of the theatre for which he 

* In one of Ms sonnets he says : 

O, for my sake do you with fortune cliide, 

The guilty goddess of my hai-mless deeda, 
Tliat did not better for my life provide, 

Than public means which public manners breeds. 

And in the following : — 

Your love and pity doth the impression fill, 
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow. 



SHAKSPEARE AT COURT — BRILLIANT SUCCESS. 353 

wrote. That lie was not admitted to the society of persons 
of distinction is altogether incredible. Not to mention many 
others, he found a liberal friend and kind patron in the Earl 
of Southampton, the friend of the unfortunate Essex. His 
pieces were not only the delight of the great public, but also 
in great favour at court : the two monarchs under whose reigns 
he wrote were, according to the testimony of a contemporary, 
quite "taken' with him-''. Many were acted at court; and 
Elizabeth appears herself to have commanded the writing of 
more than one to be acted at her court festivals. King 
James, it is well known, honoured Shakspeare so far as to 
write to him with his own hand. All this looks very unlike 
either contempt or banishment into the obscurity of a low 
circle. By his labours as a poet, player, and stage-manager, 
Shakspeare acquired a considerable property, which, in the 
last years of his too short life, he enjoyed in his native town 
in retirement and in the society of a beloved daughter. Im- 
mediately after his death a monument was erected over his 
grave, which may be considered sumptuous for those times. 

In the midst of such brilliant success, and with such dis- 
tinguished proofs of respect and honour from his contempo- 
raries, it would be singular indeed if Shakspeare, notwith- 
standing the modesty of a great mind, which he certainly 
possessed in a peculiar degree, should never have dreamed 
of posthumous fame. As a profound thinker he had pretty 
accurately taken the measure of the circle of human capa- 
bilities, and he could say to himself with confidence, that many 
of his productions would not easily be surpassed. What 
foundation then is there for the contrary assertion, which 
would degrade the immortal artist to the situation of a daily 
labourer for a rude multitude? — Merely this, that he himself 
published no edition of his whole works We do not reflect 
that a poet, always accustomed to labour immediately for the 
stage, who has often enjoyed the triumph of overpowering 
assembled crowds of spectators, and drawing from them the 
most tumultuous applause, who the while was not dependent 
on the caprice of crotchety stage directors, but left to his own 
discretion to select and determine the mode of theatrical 

* Ben Jonson : — 

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames. 
That so did take Eiiza and our James I 



354 SHAKSPEARE — HIS MA^a'SCRIPTS— FELLOW MANAGERS. 

representation, naturally cares much less for the closet of the 
solitary reader. During the first formation of a national 
theatre, more especially, we find frequent examples of such 
indifi'erence. Of the almost innumerable pieces of Lope de 
Vega, many undoubtedly were never printed, and are con- 
sequently lost; and Cervantes did not print his earlier dramas, 
though he certainly boasts of them as meritorious works. As 
Shakspeare, on his retiring from the theatre, left his manu- 
scripts behind with his fellow-managers, he may have relied 
on theatrical tradition for handing them down to posterity, 
which would indeed have been sufficient for that purpose if 
the closing of the theatres, under the tyrannical intolerance 
of the Puritans, had not interrupted the natural order of 
things. We know, besides, that the poets used then to sell 
the exclusive copyright of their pieces to the theatre""*'' : it is 
therefore not improbable that the right of property in his 
unprinted pieces was no longer vested in Shakspeare, or had 
not at least yet reverted to him. His fellow-managers entered 
on the publication seven years after his death (which probably 
cut short his own intention,) as it would appear on their own 
account and for their own advantage. 



LECTURE XXIII. 



Ignorance or Learning of Shakspeare — Costume as observed by Shak- 
speare, and how far necessary, or may be dispensed with in the Drama 
— Shakspeare the greatest drawer of Character — Vindication of the 
genuineness of his pathos — Play on words — Moral dehcacy — Irony — 
Mixture of the Tragic and Comic — The part of the Fool or Clown — 
Shakspeare' s Language and Versification. 

Our poet's want of scholarship has been the subject of end- 
less controversy, and yet it is surely a very easy matter to 
decide, Shakspeare was poor in dead school-cram, but he 
possessed a rich treasury of living and intuitive knowledge. 
He knew a little Latin, and even something of Greek, though 
it may be not enough to read with ease the writers in the 
original. With modern languages also, the French and Ita- 

* This is perhaps not uncommon still in some countries. The Venetian 
Director Medebach, for whose company many of Goldoni's Comedies were 
composed, claimed an exclusiye right to them. — Tbans. 



SHAKSPBARE — CONTROVERSY ON HIS SCHOLARSHIP. 355 

iian, lie had^ perhaps, but a superjBcial acquaintance. The 
general direction of his mind was not to the collection of 
words but of facts. With English books, whether original 
or translated, he was extensively acquainted : we may safely 
affirm that he had read all that his native language and litera- 
ture then contained that could be of any use to him in his 
poetical avocations. He was sufficiently intimate with my- 
thology to employ it, in the only manner he could wish, in 
the way of symbolical ornament. He had formed a correct 
notion of the spirit of Ancient History, and more particularly 
of that of the Romans ; and the history of his own country 
was familiar to him even in detail. Fortunately for him it 
had not as yet been treated in a diplomatic and pragmatic 
spirit, but merely in the chronicle-style j in other words, it 
had not yet assumed the appearance of dry investigations 
respecting the development of political relations, diplomatic 
negotiations, finances, &c., but exhibited a visible image of 
the life and movement of an age prolific of great deeds. 
Shakspeare, moreover, was a nice observer of nature j he knew 
the technical language of mechanics and artisans ; he seems 
to have been well travelled in the interior of his own country, 
while of others he inquired diligently of travelled navigators 
respecting their peculiarity of climate and customs. He thus 
became accurately acquainted with all the popular usages, 
opinions, and traditions which could be of use in poetry. 

The proofs of his ignorance, on which the greatest stress is 
laid, are a few geographical blunders and anachronisms. Be- 
cause in a comedy founded on an earlier tale, he makes ships 
visit Bohemia, he has been the subject of much laughter. But 
I conceive that we should be very unjust towards him, were 
we to conclude that he did not, as well as ourselves, possess 
the useful but by no means difficult knowledge that Bohemia 
is nowhere bounded by the sea. He could never, in that case, 
have looked into a map of Grermany, who yet describes else- 
where, with great accuracy, the maps of both Indies, together 
with the discoveries of the latest navigators*. In such mat- 
ters Shakspeare is only faithful to the details of the domestic 
stories. In the novels on which he worked, he avoided dis- 
turbing the associations of his audience, to whom they were 
known, by novelties — the correction of errors in secondary 

* Twelfth Night, or What You Will— Act iii. scene ii. 

Z ^ 



356 SHAKSPEARE — HIS ANACHRONISMS. 

and unimportant particulars. The more wonderful the story, 
the more it ranged in a purely poetical region, which he trans- 
fers at will to an indefinite distance. These plays, whatever 
names they bear, take place in the true land of romance, and 
in the very century of wonderful love stories. He knew well 
that in the forest of Ardennes there were neither the lions 
and serpents of the Torrid Zone, nor the shepherdesses of 
Arcadia : but he transferred loth to it"', because the design 
and import of his picture required them. Here he considered 
himself entitled to take the greatest liberties. He had not to 
do with a hair-splitting, hypercritical age like ours, which is 
always seeking in poetry for something else than poetry; his 
audience entered the theatre, not to learn true chronology, 
geography, and natural history, but to witness a vivid exhibi- 
tion. I will undertake to prove that Shakspeare's anachro- 
nisms are, for the most part, committed of set purpose and 
deliberately. It was frequently of importance to him to move 
the exhibited subject out of the background of time, and 
bring it quite near us. Hence in Hamlet, though avowedly 
an old Northern story, there runs a tone of modish society, 
and in every respect the costume of the most recent period. 
Without those circumstantialities it would not have been 
allowable to make a philosophical inquirer of Hamlet, on 
which trait, however, the meaning of the whole is made to 
rest. On that account he mentions his education at a univer- 
sity, though, in the age of the true Hamlet of history, univer- 
sities were not in existence. He makes him study at Witten- 
berg, and no selection of a place could have been more suitable. 
The name was very popular : the story of Dr. Faustus of Wit- 
tenberg had made it well known ; it was of particular celebrity 
in protestant England, as Luther had taught and written 
there shortly before, and the very name must have imme- 
diately suggested the idea of freedom in thinking. I cannot 
even consider it an anachronism that Richard the Third should 
speak of Macchiavel. The word is here used altogether pro- 
verbially: the contents, at least, of the book entitled Of the 
Prince (Del Principe,) have been in existence ever since the 
existence of tyi-ants j Macchiavel was merely the first to com- 
mit them to writing. 

That Shakspeare has accurately hit the essential costume, 

* As You Like It, 



SIIAKSPEARE — HIS ACCURACY IN ESSENTIAL COSTUME. 357 

namely, tlie spirit of ages and nations, is at least acknow- 
ledged generally by the English critics ; but many sins against 
external costume may be easily remarked. But here it is 
necessary to bear in mind that the Roman pieces were acted 
upon the stage of that day in the European dress. This was, 
it is true, still grand and splendid, not so silly and tasteless as 
it became towards the end of the seventeenth century. (Bru- 
tus and Cassius appeared in the Spanish cloak ; they wore, 
quite contrary to the Roman custom, the sword by their side 
in time of peace, and, according to the testimony of an eye 
witness-'', it was, in the dialogue where Brutus stimulates 
Cassius to the conspiracy, drawn, as if involuntarily, half out 
of the sheath.) This does in no way agree with our way of 
thinking : we are not content without the toga. The present, 
perhaps, is not an inappropriate place for a few general obser- 
vations on costume, considered with reference to art. It has 
never been more accurately observed than in the present 
day; art has become a slop-shop for pedantic antiquities. 
This is because we live in a learned and critical, but by 
no means poetical age. The ancients before us used, when 
they had to represent the religions of other nations, which 
deviated very much from their own, to bring them into con- 
formity with the Greek mythology. In Sculpture, again, the 
same dress, namely, the Phrygian, was adopted, once for all, 
for every barbaric tribe. Not that they did not know that 
there were as many dijfferent dresses as nations; but in art 
they merely wished to acknowledge the great contrast be- 
tween barbarian and civilized: and this, they thought, was 
rendered most strikingly apparent in the Phrygian garb. 
The earlier Christian painters represent the Saviour, the Vir- 
gin Mary, the Patriarchs, and the Apostles in an ideal dress; 
but the subordinate actors or spectators of the action, in the 
dresses of their own nation and age. Here they were guided 
by a correct feeling : the mysterious and sacred ought to be 
kept at an awe-inspiring distance, but the human cannot be 
rightly understood if seen without its usual accompaniments. 
In the middle ages all heroical stories of antiquity, from The- 
seus and Achilles down to Alexander, were metamorphosed 
into true tales of chivalry. What was related to themselves 
* In one of the commendatory poems in the first folio edition : 

And on the stage at half sword parley were 

Brutus and Cassius. 



S5S SHAKSPEARE OBSERVATIONS OX COSTUME. 

spoke alone an intelligible language to tliem ; of dijfferences 
and distinctions they did not care to know. In an old manu- 
script of the Iliad, I saw a miniature illumination represent- 
ing Hector's funeral procession, where the coffin is hung with 
noble coats of arms, and carried into a Gothic church. It is 
easy to make merry with this piece of simplicity, but a reflect- 
ing mind will see the subject in a very different light. A 
powerful consciousness of the universal validity and the solid 
permanency of their own manner of being, an undoubting con- 
viction that it has always so been and -will ever continue so to 
be in the world : these feelings of our ancestors were symp- 
toms of a fresh fulness of life ; they were the marrow of action, 
in reality as well as in fiction. Their plain and affectionate 
attachment to every thing around them, handed down from 
their fathers, is by no means to be confounded with the obstre- 
perous conceit of ages of mannerism, who, out of vanity, 
introduce the fleeting modes and fashion of the day into art, 
because to them everything like noble simplicity seems 
boorish and rude. The latter impropriety is now abolished : 
but, on the other hand, our poets and artists, if they would 
hoj)e for our approbation, must, like servants, wear the livery 
of distant centuries and foreign nations. We are everywhere 
at home except at home. We do ourselves the justice to 
allow that the present mode of dressing, forms of politeness, 
&c., are altogether unpoetical, and art is therefore obliged to 
beg, as an alms, a poetical costume from the antiquaries. To 
that simple way of thinking, which is merely attentive to the 
inward truth of the composition, without stumbling at ana- 
chronisms, or other external inconsistencies, we cannot, alas ! 
now return; but we must envy the poets to whom it offered 
itself; it allowed them a great breadth and freedom in the 
handling of their subject. 

Many things in Shakspeare must be judged of according 
to the above principles, respecting the difference between the 
essential and the merely learned costume. They will also 
in their measure admit of an application to Calderon. 

So much with respect to the spirit of the age in which 
Shakspeare lived, and his peculiar mental culture and know- 
ledge. To me he appears a profound artist, and not a blind 
and wildly luxuriant genius. I consider, generally speaking, 
all that has been said on the subject a mere fable, a blind and 
In other arts the assertion refutes itself; 



SHAKSPEARE — HIS CHARACTER AND PASSION. 359 

for in them acquired knowledge is an indispensable condition 
of clever execution. But even in such poets, as are usually 
given out as careless pupils of nature, devoid of art or school 
discipline, I have always found, on a nearer consideration of 
the works of real excellence they may have produced, even a 
high cultivation of the mental powers, practice in art, and 
views both worthy in themselves and maturely considered. 
This applies to Homer as well as to Dante. The activity of 
genius is, it is true, natural to it, and, in a certain sense, un- 
conscious; and, consequently, the person who possesses it is 
not always at the moment able to render an account of the 
course which he may have pursued; but it by no means fol- 
lows, that the thinking power had not a great share in it. It 
is from the very rapidity and certainty of the mental pro- 
cess, from the utmost clearness of understanding, that think- 
ing in a poet is not perceived as something abstracted, does 
not wear the appearance of reflex meditation. That notion of 
poetical inspiration, which many lyrical poets have brought 
into circulation, as if they were not in their senses, and like 
Pythia, when possessed by the divinity, delivered oracles un- 
intelligible to themselves — this notion, (a mere lyrical inven- 
tion,) is least of all applicable to dramatic composition, one of 
the most thoughtful productions of the human mind. It is 
admitted that Shakspeare has reflected, and deeply reflected, 
on character and passion, on the progress of events and human 
destinies, on the human constitution, on all the things and 
relations of the world; this is an admission which must be 
made, for one alone of thousands of his maxims would be a 
sufficient refutation of whoever should attempt to deny it. 
So that it was only for the structure of his own pieces that he 
had no thought to spare'? This he left to the dominion of 
chance, which blew together the atoms of Epicurus. But 
supposing that, devoid of any higher ambition to approve him- 
self to judicious critics and posterity, and wanting in that 
love of art which longs for self-satisfaction in the perfection of 
its works, he had merely laboured to please the unlettered 
crowd; still this very object alone and the pursuit of theatrical 
efiect, would have led him to bestow attention to the structure 
and adherence of his pieces. For does not the impression of 
a drama depend in an especial manner on the relation of the 
parts to each other'? And, however beautiful a scene may be in 
itself, if yet it be at variance with what the spectators have 



360 SriAKSPEARE — CONSISTENCY OF HIS CHARACTERS. 

been led to expect in its particular place, so as to destroy the 
interest wliicli tliey had hitherto felt, will it not be at once 
reprobated by all who possess j)lain common sense, and give 
themselves np to nature? The comic intermixtures maybe 
considered merely as a sort of interlude, designed to relieve 
the straining of the mind after the stretch of the more serious 
parts, so long as no better purpose can be found in them ; but 
in the progress of the main action, in the concatenation of the 
events, the poet must, if possible, display even more expendi- 
ture of thought than in the composition of individual charac- 
ter and situations, otherwise he would be like the conductor 
of a puppet-show who has entangled his wires, so that the 
puppets receive from their mechanism quite different move- 
ments from those which he actually intended. 

The English critics are unanimous in their praise of the 
truth and uniform consistency of his characters, of his heart- 
rending pathos, and his comic wit. Moreover, they extol the 
beauty and sublimity of his separate descriptions, images, and 
expressions. This last is the most superficial and cheap mode 
of criticising works of art. Johnson compares him who 
should endeavour to recommend this poet by passages uncon- 
uectedly torn from his works, to the pedant in Hierocles, who 
exhibited a brick as a sample of his house. And yet how 
little, and how very unsatisfactorily does he himself speak of 
the pieces considered as a whole ! Let any man, for instance, 
bring together the short characters which he gives at the close 
of each play, and see if the aggregate will amount to that 
sum of admiration which he himself, at his outset, has stated 
as the correct standard for the appreciation of the poet. It was, 
generally speaking, the prevailing tendency of the time which 
preceded our own, (and which has showed itself particularly 
in physical science,) to consider everything having life as a 
mere accumulation of dead parts, to separate what exists only 
in connexion and cannot otherwise be conceived, instead of 
penetrating to the central point and viewing all the parts as 
so many irradiations from it. Hence nothing is so rare as a 
critic who can elevate himself to the comprehensive contem- 
plation of a work of art. Shakspeare's compositions, from the 
A^ery depth of purpose displayed in them, have been especially 
liable to the misfortune of being misunderstood. Besides, this 
prosaic species of criticism requires always that the poetic form 
should be applied to the details of execution; but when the 



SHAKSPEARE— HIS ROMEO AND JULIET. 361 

plan of the piece is concerned, it never looks for more tlian 
the logical connexion of causes and effects, or some partial 
and trite moral by way of application; and all that cannot he 
reconciled therewith is declared superfiuoas, or even a perni- 
cious appendage. On these principles we must even strike 
out from the Greek tragedies most of the choral songs, which 
also contribute nothing to the development of the action, but 
are merely an harmonious echo of the impressions the poet 
aims at conveying. In this they altogether mistake the 
rights of poetry and the nature of the romantic drama, which, 
for the very reason that it is and ought to be picturesque, 
requires richer accompaniments and contrasts for its main 
groups. In all Art and Poetry, but more especially in the 
romantic, the Fancy lays claims to be considered as an inde- 
pendent mental power governed according to its own laws. 

In an essay on Romeo and Julietf^, written a number of 
years ago, I went through the whole of the scenes in their 
order, and demonstrated the inward necessity of each with 
reference to the whole ; I showed why such a particular 
circle of characters and relations was placed around the two 
lovers ; I explained the signification of the mirth here and 
there scattered, and justified the use of the occasional height- 
ening given to the poetical colours. From all this it seemed 
to follow unquestionably, that with the exception of a few 
witticisms, now become unintelligible or foreign to the pre- 
sent taste, (imitations of the tone of society of that day,) 
nothing could be taken away, nothing added, nothing other- 
wise arranged, without mutilating and disfiguring the perfect 
work. I would readily undertake to do the same for all the 
pieces of Shakspeare's maturer years, but to do this would re- 
<juire a separate book. Here I am reduced to confine my 
observations to the tracing his great designs with a rapid 
pencil ; but still I must previously be allowed to deliver my 
sentiments in a general manner on the subject of his most 
eminent peculiarities. 

Shakspeare's knowledge of mankind has become proverbial : 
in this his superiority is so great, that he has justly been 
called the m.aster of the human heart. A readiness to remark 
the mind's fainter and involuntary utterances, and the power 
to express with certainty the meaning of these signs, as deter- 

* In the first volume of CharakterisWcen und Kritiken, published by 
my brother and myself. 



362 SHAKSPBARE — HIS TALENT FOR CHARACTERIZATION. 

mined by experience and reflection, constitutes " tlie observer 
of men;" but tacitly to draw from tliese still further conclu- 
sions, and to arrange the sej^arate observations according to 
grounds of probability, into a just and valid combination, 
this, it may be said, is to know men. The distinguishing 
property of the dramatic poet who is great in characterization, 
is something altogether different here, and which, (take it 
which way we will,) either includes in it this readiness and this 
acuteness, or dispenses with both. It is the capability of 
transporting himself so completely into every situation, even 
the most unusual, that he is enabled, as plenipotentiary of 
the whole human race, without particular instructions for 
each separate case, to act and speak in the name of every iu- 
div^idual. It is the power of endowing the creatures of his 
imagination with such self-existent energy, that they after- 
wards act in each conjuncture according to general laws of 
nature : the poet, in his dreams, institutes, as it were, experi- 
ments which are received with as much authority as if they 
had been made on waking objects. The inconceivable ele- 
ment herein, and what moreover can never be learned, is, 
that the characters appear neithef to do nor to say any thing 
on the spectator's account merely; and yet that the poet 
simj)ly, by means of the exhibition, and without any subsi- 
diary explanation, communicates to his audience the gift of 
looking into the inmost recesses of their minds. Hence 
Goethe has ingeniously compared Shakspeare's characters to 
watches with crystalline plates and cases, which, while they 
point out the hours as correctly as other watches, enable us 
at the same time to perceive the inward springs whereby all 
this is accomplished. 

Nothing, however, is more foreign to Shakspeare than a 
certain anatomical style of exhibition, which laboriously enu- 
merates all the motives by which a man is determined to act 
in this or that particular manner. This rage of supplying 
motives, the mania of so many modern historians, might be 
^ carried at length to an extent which would abolish every thing 
L like individuality, and resolve all character into nothing but 
4 the effect of foreign or external influences, whereas we know 
7 that it often announces itself most decidedly in earliest in- 
1 fancy. After all, a man acts so because he is so. And what 
each man is, that Shakspeare reveals to us most immediately: 
he demands and obtains our belief, even for what is singular 



SHAKSPEARE — POPE AND JOHNSON. 363 

and deviates from the ordinary course of nature. Never 
perhaps was there so comprehensive a talent for characteriza- 
tion as Shakspeare. It not only grasps every diversity of 
rank^ age, and sex, down to the lispings of infancy; not only 
do the king and the beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, the 
sage and the idiot, speak and act with equal truthfulness; 
not only does he transport himself to distant ages and foreign, 
nations, and portray with the greatest accuracy (a few appa- 
rent violations of costume excepted) the spirit of the ancient 
Romans, of the French in the wars with the English, of the 
English themselves during a great part of their history, of 
the Southern Europeans (in the serious part of many come- 
dies), the cultivated society of the day, and the rude barbarism 
of a Norman fore-time; his human characters have not only 
such depth and individuality that they do not admit of being 
classed under common names, and are inexhaustible even in 
conception: no, this Prometheus not merely forms men, he 
opens the gates of the magical world of spirits, calls up the 
midnight ghost, exhibits before us the witches with their un- 
hallowed rites, peoples the air with sportive fairies and 
sylphs; and these beings, though existing only in the imagi- 
nation, nevertheless possess such truth and consistency, that 
even with such misshapen abortions as Caliban, he extorts the 
assenting conviction, that were there such beings they would 
so conduct themselves. In a word, as he carries a bold and 
pregnant fancy into the kingdom of nature, on the other hand, 
he carries nature into the regions of fancy, which lie beyond 
the confines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at the 
close intimacy he brings us into with the extraordinary, the 
wonderful, and the unheard-of. 

Pope and Johnson appear strangely to contradict each 
other, when the first says, " all the characters of Shakspeare 
are individuals," and the second, " they are species." And 
yet perhaps these opinions may admit of reconciliation. 
Pope's expression is unquestionably the more correct. A 
character which should be merely a personification of a naked 
general idea could neither exhibit any great depth nor any 
great variety. The names of genera and species are well 
known to be merely auxiliaries for the understanding, that 
we may embrace the infinite variety of nature in a certain 
order. The characters which Shakspeare has so thoroughly 
delineated have undoubtedly a number of individual pecu- 



564 SHAKSPEARE HIS EXHIBITION OF PASSION. 

liarities, but at the same time thej possess a significance which 
is not applicable to them alone: they generally supply mate- 
rials for a profound theory of their most prominent and 
distinguishing property. But even with the above correction, 
this opinion must still have its limitations. Characterization 
is merely one ingredient of the dramatic art, and not dramatic 
poetry itself. It would be improper in the extreme, if the 
poet were to draw our attention to superfluous traits of cha- 
racter, at a time when it ought to be his endeavour to produce 
other impressions. Whenever the musical or the fanciful pre- 
ponderates, the characteristical necessarily falls into the back- 
ground. Hence many of the figures of Shakspeare exhibit 
merely external designations, determined by the place which 
they occupy in the whole : they are like secondary persons in 
a public procession, to whose physiognomy we seldom pay 
much attention; their only importance is derived from the 
solemnity of their dress and the duty in which they are 
engaged. Shakspeare's messengers, for instance, are for the 
most part mere messengers, and yet not common, but poetical 
messengers : the messages which they have to bring is the 
soul which suggests to them their language. Other voices, 
too, are merely raised to pour forth these as melodious lamen- 
tations or rejoicings, or to dwell in reflection on what has 
taken place; and in a serious drama without chorus this must 
always be more or less the case, if we would not have it pro- 
^aicai. 

If Shakspeare deserves our admiration for his characters, 
he is equally deserA'ing of it for his exhibition of passion, 
taking this word in its widest signification, as including 
every mental condition, every tone, from indifi'erence or fami- 
liar mirth to the wildest rage and despair. He gives us the 
history of minds; he lays open to us, in a single word, a 
whole series of their anterior states. His passions do not 
stand at the same height, from first to last, as is the case with 
so many tragic poets, who, in the language of Lessing, are 
thorough masters of the legal style of love. He paints, with 
inimitable veracity, the gradual advance from the first origin; 
^^he gives," as Lessing says, "a living picture of all th^ 
slight and secret artifices by which a feeling steals into our 
souls, of all the imperceptible advantages which it there gains, 
of all the stratagems by which it makes every other passion 
subservient to itself, till it becomes the sole tyrant of our 



SHAKSPEARE — HIS PLAY ON WORDS. 365 

desires and our aversions." Of all the poets, perhaps, he 
alone has portrayed the mental diseases, melancholy, delirium, 
lunacy, with such inexpressible and, in every respect, definite 
truth, that the physician may enrich his observations from 
them in the same manner as from real cases. 

And yet Johnson has objected to Shakspeare that his 
pathos is not always natural and free from affectation. There 
are, it is true, passages, though comparatively speaking very 
few, where his poetry exceeds the bounds of actual dialogue, 
where a too soaring imagination, a too luxuriant wit, rendered 
a complete dramatic forgetfulness of himself impossible. 
With this exception, the censure originated in a fanciless way 
of thinking, to which everything appears unnatural that does 
not consort with its own tame insipidity. Hence an idea has 
been formed of simple and natural pathos, which consists 
in exclamations destitute of imagery and nowise elevated 
above every-day life. But energetical passions electrify all 
the mental powers, and will consequently, in highly-favoured 
natures, give utterance to themselves in ingenious and figura- 
tive expressions. It has been often remarked that indignation 
makes a man witty; and as despair occasionally breaks out 
into laughter, it may sometimes also give vent to itself in an- 
tithetical comparisons. 

Besides, the rights of the poetical form have not ])een duly 
weighed. Shakspeare, who was always sure of his power to 
excite, when he wished, sufficiently powerful emotions, has 
occasionally, by indulging in a freer play of fancy, purposely 
tempered the impressions when too painful, and immediately 
introduced a musical softening of our sympathy*. He had 
not those rude ideas of his art which many moderns seem 
to have, as if the poet, like the clown in the proverb, must 
strike twice on the same place. An ancient rhetorician deli- 
vered a caution against dwelling too long on the excitation 
of pity; for nothing, he said, dries so soon as tears; and 
Shakspeare acted conformably to this ingenious maxim with- 
out having learned it. The paradoxical assertion of Johnson 
that " Shakspeare had a greater talent for comedy than tragedy, 

* A contemporary of the poet, the author of the already-noticed poem^ 
(subscribed I. M. S.,) tenderly felt this while he says — 
Yet so to temper passion, that our ears 
Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears 
Both smile and weep. 



366 SHAKSPEARE — POETICAL USE OF A PLAY ON WORDS. 

and that in tlie latter lie has frequently displayed an aflfected 
tone," is scarcely deserving of lengthy notice. For its re- 
futation, it is unnecessary to appeal to the great tragical 
compositions of the poet, which, for overpowering effect, 
leave far behind them almost everything that the stage has 
seen besides; a few of their less celebrated scenes would 
be quite sufficient. What to many readers might lend an 
appearance of truth to this assertion are the verbal witticisms, 
that playing upon words, which Shakspeare not unfrequently 
introduces into serious and sublime passages, and even into 
those also of a peculiarly pathetic nature. 

I have already stated the point of view in which we ought 
to consider this sportive play upon words. I shall here, 
therefore, merely deliver a few observations respecting the 
playing upon words in general, and its poetical use. A 
thorough investigation would lead us too far from our subject, 
and too deeply into considerations on the essence of language, 
and its relation to poetry, or rhyme, &c. 

There is in the human mind a desire that language should 
exhibit the object which it denotes, sensibly, by its very- 
sound, which may be traced even as far back as in the first 
origin of poetry. As, in the shape in which language comes 
down to us, this is seldom perceptibly the case, an imagination 
which has been powerfully excited is fond of laying hold of 
any congruity io sound which may accidentally offer itself, 
that by such means he may, for the nonce, restore the lost 
resemblance between the word and the thing. For example, 
How common was it and is it to seek in the name of a person, 
however arbitrarily bestowed, a reference to his qualities and 
fortunes, — to convert it purposely into a significant name. 
Those who cry out against the play upon words as an unna- 
tural and affected invention, only betray their own ignorance 
of original nature. A great fondness for it is always evinced 
among children, as well as with nations of simple manners, 
among whom correct ideas of the derivation and affinity 
of words have not yet been developed, and do not, conse- 
quently, stand in the way of this caprice. In Homer we find 
several examples of it; the Books of Moses, the oldest written 
memorial of the primitive world, are, as is well known, full of 
them. On the other hand, poets of a very cultivated taste, 
like Petrarch, or orators, like Cicero, have delighted in them. 
Whoever, in Bichard the Second, is disgusted with the 



SHAKSPEARE MORAL DELICACY. 367 

affecting play of words of tlie dying John of Gaunt on his 
own name, should remember that the same thing occurs in 
the Ajax of Sophocles. We do not mean to say that all play- 
ing upon words is on all occasions to be justified. This must 
depend on the disposition of mind, whether it will admit of 
such a play of fancy, and whether the sallies, comparisons, 
and allusions, which lie at the bottom of them, possess in- 
ternal solidity. Yet we must not proceed upon the principle 
of trying how the thought appears after it is deprived of the 
resemblance in sound, any more than we are to endeavour to 
feel the charm of rhymed versification after depriving it of its 
rhyme. The laws of good taste on this subject must, more- 
over, vary with the quality of the languages. In those which 
possess a great number of homonymes, that is, words possessing 
the same, or nearly the same, sound, though quite different in 
their derivation and signification, it is almost more difficult to 
avoid, than to fall on such a verbal play. It has, however, 
been feared, lest a door might be opened to puerile witticism, 
if they were not rigorously proscribed. But I cannot, for my 
part, find that Shakspeare had such an invincible and immo- 
derate passion for this verbal witticism. It is true, he some- 
times makes a most lavish use of this figure; at others, he has 
employed it very sparingly; and at times (for example, in 
Macbeth), I do not believe a vestige of it is to be found. 
Hence, in respect to the use or the rejection of the play upon 
words, he must have been guided by the measure of the 
objects, and the different style in which they required to be 
treated, and probably have followed here, as in every thing 
else, principles which, fairly examined, will bear a strict 
examination. 

The objection that Shakspeare wounds our feelings by the 
open display of the most disgusting moral odiousness, un- 
mercifully harrows up the mind, and tortures even our eyes 
by the exhibition of the most insupportable and hateful spec- 
tacles, is one of greater and graver importance. He has, in 
fact, never varnished over wild and blood-thirsty passions 
with a pleasing exterior — never clothed crime and want of 
principle with a false show of greatness of soul; and in that 
respect he is every way deserving of praise. Twice he has 
portrayed downright villains, and the masterly way in which 
he has contrived to elude impressions of too painful a nature 
may be seen in lago and Kichard the Third. I allow that 



368 SHAKSPEARE UNION OF ELEVATION AND DEPTH. 

the reading, and still more tlie sight, of some of his pieces, 
is not advisable to weak nerves, any more than was the 
Eumenides of ^schylus; but is the poet, who can only reach 
an important object by a bold and hazardous daring, to be 
checked by considerations for such persons? If the eflfeminacy 
of the present day is to serve as a general standard of what 
tragical composition may properly exhibit to human nature, 
we shall be forced to set very narrow limits indeed to art, 
and the hope of anything like powerful effect must at once 
and for ever be renounced. If we wish to have a grand pur- 
pose, we must also wish to have the grand means, and our 
nerves ought in some measure to accommodate themselves to 
painful imjDressions, if, by way of requital, our mind is thereby 
elevated and strengthened. The constant reference to a petty 
and puny race must cripple the boldness of the poet. Fortu- 
nately for his art, Shakspeare lived in an age extremely sus- 
ceptible of noble and tender impressions, but which had yet in- 
herited enough of the firmness of a vigorous olden time, not to 
shrink with dismay from every strong and forcible painting. 
We have lived to see tragedies of which the castastrophe con- 
sists in the swoon of an enamoured princess: if Shakspeare 
falls occasionally into the opposite extreme, it is a noble error, 
originating in the fulness of a gigantic strength. And this 
tragical Titan, who storms the heavens and threatens to tear 
the world from off its hinges, who, more terrible than ^schy- 
lus, makes our hair to stand on end^ and congeals our blood 
with horror, possessed at the same time the insinuating 
loveliness of the sweetest poesy; he toys with love like a 
child, and his songs die away on the ear like melting sighs. 
He unites in his soul the utmost elevation and the utmost 
depth; and the most opposite and even apparently irreconcil- 
able properties subsist in him peaceably together. The world. 
of spirits and nature have laid all their treasures at his feet: 
in strength a demi-god, in profunclity of view a prophet, in 
all-seeing wisdom a guardian spirit of a higher order, he 
lowers himself to mortals as if unconscious of his suj)eriority, 
and is as open and unassuming as a child. 

If the delineation of all his characters, separately con- 
sidered, is inimitably bold and correct, he surpasses even 
himself in so combining and contrasting them, that tbey serve 
to bring out each other's peculiarities. This is the very per- 
fection of dramatic characterization : for we can never esti- 



SHAKSPEARE HIS IRONY, 369 

mate a man's true worth if we consider him altogether 
abstractedly by himself; we must see him in his relations 
with others; and it is here that most dramatic poets are 
deficient. Shakspeare makes each of his principal characters 
the glass in which the others are reflected, and by like means 
enables us to discover what could not be immediately revealed 
to us. What in others is most profound, is with him but 
surface. Ill-advised should we be were we always to take 
men's declarations respecting themselves and others for ster- 
ling coin. Ambiguity of design with much propriety he 
makes to overflow with the most praiseworthy principles; 
and sage maxims are not unfrequently put in the mouth of 
stupidity, to show how easily such common-place truisms may 
be acquired. Nobody ever painted so truthfully as he has 
done the facility of self-deception, the half self-conscious 
hypocrisy towards ourselves, with which even noble minds 
attempt to disguise the almost inevitable influence of selfish 
motives in human nature. This secret irony of the characteri- 
zation commands admiration as the profound abyss of acuteness 
and sagacity; but it is the grave of enthusiasm. We arrive 
at it only after we have had the misfortune to see human 
nature through and through; and when no choice remains 
but to adopt the melancholy truth, that ^'^no virtue or great- 
ness is altogether pure and genuine," or the dangerous error 
that "the highest perfection is attainable." Here we there- 
fore may perceive in the poet himself, notwithstanding his 
power to excite the most fervent emotions, a certain cool 
indifi"erence, but still the indifi'erence of a superior mind, 
which has run through the whole sphere of human existence 
and survived feeling. 

The irony in Shakspeare has not merely a reference to the 
separate characters, but frequently to the whole of the action. 
Most poets who pourtray human events in a narrative or dra- 
matic form take themselves a part, and exact from their 
readers a blind approbation or condemnation of whatever 
side they choose to support or oppose. The more zealous this 
rhetoric is, the more certainly it fails of its efiect. In every 
case we are conscious that the subject itself is not brought 
immediately before us, but that we view it through the 
medium of a difi'ereut way of thinking. When, however, 
by a dexterous manoeuvre, the poet allows us an occa- 
sional glance at the less brilliant reverse of the medal, then 

2 a 



370 SHAKSPEARE — HIS COMIC TALENT. 

he makes, as it were, a sort of secret understanding with 
the select circle of the more intelligent of his readers or spec- 
tators ; he shows them that he had previously seen and ad- 
mitted the validity of their tacit objections; that he himself 
is not tied down to the represented subject, but soars freely 
above it ; and that, if he chose, he could unrelentingly anni- 
hilate the beautiful and irresistibly attractive scenes which 
his magic pen has produced. No doubt, wherever the proper 
tragic enters every thing like irony immediately ceases ; but 
from the avowed raillery of Comedy, to the point where the 
subjection of mortal beings to an inevitable destiny demands 
the highest degree of seriousness, there are a multitude of 
human relations which unquestionably may be considered in 
an ironical view, without confounding the eternal line of 
separation between good and evil. This purpose is answered 
by the comic characters and scenes which are interwoven 
with the serious parts in most of those pieces of Shakspeare 
where romantic fables or historical events are made the sub- 
ject of a noble and elevating exhibition. Frequently an 
intentional parody of the serious part is not to be mistaken 
in them ; at other times the connexion is more arbitrary and 
loose, and the more so the more marvellous the invention of 
the whole, and the more entirely it is become a light revel- 
ling of the fancy. The comic intervals ever3rwhere serve to 
prevent the pastime from being converted into a business, to 
preserve the mind in the possession of its serenity, and to 
keep off that gloomy and inert seriousness which so easily 
steals upon the sentimental, but not tragical, drama. Most 
assuredly Shakspeare did not intend thereby, in defiance 
to his own better judgment, to humour the taste of the 
multitude: for in various pieces, and throughout consider- 
able portions of others, and especially when the catastrophe 
is approaching, and the mind consequently is more on the 
stretch and no longer likely to give heed to any amusement 
which would distract their attention, he has abstained from 
all such comic intermixtures. It was also an object with 
him, that the clowns or buffoons should not occupy a more 
important place than that which he had assigned them : he 
expressly condemns the extemporizing with which they loved 
to enlarge their parts*. Johnson founds the justification of 
the species of drama in which seriousness and mirth are 

* In Hamlet's directions to the players. Act iii. sc. 2. 



SHAKSPEARE COMIC CnARACTERIZATION. 371 

mixed, on this, ttat in real life the vulgar is found close 
to the sublime, that the merry and the sad usually accom- 
pany and succeed one another. But it does not follow that 
because both are found together, therefore they must not 
be separable in the compositions of art. The observation is 
in other respects just, and this circumstance invests the poet 
with a power to adopt this procedure, because every thing 
in the drama must be regulated by the conditions of thea- 
trical probability; but the mixture of such dissimilar, and 
apparently contradictory, ingredients, in the same works, 
can only be justifiable on principles reconcilable with the 
views of art, which I have already described. In the dramas 
of Shakspeare the comic scenes are the antechamber of the 
poetry, where the servants remain; these prosaic attendants 
must not raise their voices so high as to deafen the speakers 
in the presence-chamber; however, in those intervals when 
the ideal society has retired they deserve to be listened to ; 
their bold raillery, their presumption of mockery, may afford 
many an insight into the situation and circumstances of their 
masters. 

Shakspeare's comic talent is equally wonderful with that 
which he has shown in the pathetic and tragic: it stands 
on an equal elevation, and possesses equal extent and pro- 
fundity; in all that I have hitherto said, I only wished to 
guard against admitting that the former preponderated. He 
is highly inventive in comic situations and motives : it will 
be hardly possible to show whence he has taken any of them, 
whereas, in the serious part of his dramas, he has generally 
laid hold of some well-known story. His comic characteriza- 
tion is equally true, various, and profound, with his serious. 
So little is he disposed to caricature, that rather, it may be 
said, many of his traits are almost too nice and delicate for 
the stage, that they can only be made available by a great 
actor, and fully understood by an acute audience. Not only 
has he delineated many kinds of foJly, but even of sheer 
stupidity has he contrived to give a most diverting and 
entertaining picture. There is also in his pieces a peculiar 
species of the farcical, which apparently seems to be introduced 
more arbitrarily, but which, however, is founded on imitation 
of some actual custom. This is the introduction of the merry- 
maker, the fool with his cap and bells, and motley dress, 
called more commonly in England Clown, who appears in 

2 a2 



S72 SHAKSPEARE THE PART OF THE FOOL AND CLOWN. 

several comedies, though not in all, but of the tragedies in Lear 
alone, and who generally merely exercises his wit in conver- 
sation with the principal persons, though he is also sometimes 
incorporated into the action. In those times it was not only 
usual for princes to have their court fools, but many distin- 
guished families, among their other retainers, kept such an 
exhilarating housemate as a good antidote against the insi- 
pidity and wearisomeness of ordinary life, and as a welcome 
interruption of established formalities. Great statesmen, and 
even ecclesiastics, did not consider it beneath their dignity to 
recruit and solace themselves after important business with 
the conversation of their fools; the celebrated Sir Thom.as 
More had his fool painted along with himself by Holbein. 
Shakspeare appears to have lived immediately before the time 
when the custom began to be abolished ; in the English comic 
authors who succeeded him the clown is no longer to be found. 
The dismissal of the fool has been extolled as a proof of 
refinement; and our honest forefathers have been pitied for 
taking delight in such a coarse and farcical amusement. For 
my part, I am rather disposed to believe, that the practice 
was dropped from the difiiculty in finding fools able to do full 
justice to their parts'^ : on the other hand, reason, with all its 
conceit of itself, has become too timid to tolerate such bold 
irony; it is always careful lest the mantle of its gravity 
should be disturbed in any of its folds ; and rather than allow 
a privileged place to folly beside itself, it has unconsciously 
assumecl the part of the ridiculous ; but, alas ! a heavy and 

* See Hamlet's praise of Yorick. In The Twelfth Night, Viola says: — 
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool, 
And to do that well craves a kind of wit ; 
He must obsei-ve their mood on whom he jests, 
The quality of the persons, and the time ; 
And like the haggard, check at every feather 
That comes before his eye. This is a practice 
As full of labour as a wise man's art : 
For folly that he wisely shows is fit, 
But wise men's folly fall'n quite taints their wit. — Author. 

The passages from Shakspeare, in the original work, are given from the 
author's masterly translation. We may be allowed, however, to observ^e, 
that the last line — 

" Doch wozu ist des Weisen Thorheit nutz .^" 
literally, Of what use is the folly of the wise ? — does not convey the exact 
meaning of Shakspeare. — Trans. 



SHAKSPEARE HIS LANGUAGE AND VERSIFICATION. 373 

cheerless ridicule*^'. It would be easy to make a collection of 
the excellent sallies and biting sarcasms which have been 
preserved of celebrated court fools. It is well known that 
they frequently told such truths to princes as are never now 
told to themt, Shakspeare's fools, along with somewhat of 
an overstraining for wit, which cannot altogether be avoided 
when wit becomes a separate profession, have for the most 
,part an incomparable humour, and an infinite abundance of 
intellect, enough indeed to supply a whoie host of ordinary 
wise men. 

I have still a few observations to make on the diction and 
versification of our poet. The language is here and there 
somewhat obsolete, but on the whole much less so than in 
most of the contemporary writers, a sufficient proof of the 
goodness of his choice. Prose had as yet been but little cul- 
tivated, as the learned generally wrote in Latin : a favourable 
I circumstance for the dramatic poet ; for what has he to do 
J with the scientific language of books ? He had not only read, 
^ but studied the earlier English poets ; but he drew his lan- 
, guage immediately from life itself, and he possessed a 
masterly skill in blending the dialogical element with the 
highest poetical elevation. I know not what certain critics 
mean, when they say that Shakspeare is frequently uu gram- 
matical. To make good their assertion, they must prove that 
. similar constructions never occur in his contemporaries, the 
direct contrary of which can, however, be easily shown. In 
no language is every thing determined on principle ; much is 
always left to the caprice of custom, and if this has since 
changed, is the poet to be made answerable for if? The 
English language had not then attained to that correct in- 
sipidity which has been introduced into the more recent 
literature of the country, to the prejudice, perhaps, of its 
originality. As a field when first brought under the plough 
produces, along with the fruitful shoots, many luxuriant 
weeds, so the poetical diction of the day ran occasionally into 

* " Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that 
wise men have makes a greater show." — As You Like It, Act i., sc. 2. 

t Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, is known to have frequently boasted 
that he wished to rival Hannibal as the greatest general of all ages. After 
his defeat at Granson, his fool accompanied him in his hurried flight, and 
exclaimed, " Ah, your Grace, they have for once Hanniballed us 1" If the 
1 Duke had given an ear to this warning raillery, he would not so soon after- 
wards have come to a disgraceful end. 



374 SHAKSPEARE — USE OF PROSE AND TERSE. 

extravagance, but an extravagance originating in the exube- 
rance of its vigour. We may still perceive traces of awkward- 
ness, but nowhere of a laboured and spiritless display of art 
In general Shakspeare's style yet remains the very best model, 
both in the vigorous and sublime, and the pleasing and tender. 
In his sphere he has exhausted all the means and appliances 
of language. On all he has impressed the stamp of his 
mighty spirit. His images and figures, in their unsought, 
nay, uncapricious singularity, have often a sweetness alto- 
gether peculiar. He becomes occasionally obscure from too 
great fondness for compressed brevity; but still, the labour of 
poring over Shakspeare's lines will invariably meet an ample 
requital. 

The verse in all his plays is generally the rhymeless 
Iambic of ten or eleven syllables, occasionally only inter- 
mixed with rhymes, but more frequently alternating with 
prose. No one piece is written entirely in prose ; for even 
in those which approach the most to the pure Comed}^, there 
is always something added which gives them a more poetical 
hue than usually belongs to this species. Many scenes are 
wholly in prose, in others verse and prose succeed each other 
alternately. This can only appear an impropriety in the 
eyes of those who are accustomed to consider the lines of a 
drama like so many soldiers drawn up rank and file on a 
parade, with the same uniform, arms, and accoutrements, so 
that when we see one or two we may represent to ourselves 
thousands as being every way like them. 

In the use of verse and prose Shakspeare observes very 
nice distinctions according to the ranks of the speakers, but 
still more according to their characters and disposition of 
mind. A noble language, elevated above the usual tone, is 
only suitable to a certain decorum of manners, which is 
thrown over both vices and virtues, and which does not even 
wholly disappear amidst the violence of passion. If this is 
not exclusively possessed by the higher ranks, it still, how- 
ever, belongs naturally more to them than to the lower; and 
therefore in Shakspeare dignity and familiarity of language, 
poetry, and prose, are in this manner distributed among the 
characters. Hence his tradesmen, peasants, soldiers, sailors, 
servants, but more especially his fools and clowns, speak, 
almost without exception, in the tone of their actual life. 
However, inward dignity of sentiment, wherever it is pos- 



SHAKSPEARE — HAMLET, TARIED FORM OF LANGUAGE. 375 

sessed, invariably displays itself with a nobleness of its own, 
and stands not in need, for that end, of the artificial elegancies 
of education and custom ; it is a universal right of man, of 
the highest as well as the lowest; and hence also, in Shak- 
epeare, the nobility of nature and morality is ennobled above 
the artificial nobility of society. Not unfrequently also he 
makes the very same persons express themselves at times in 
the sublimest language, and at others in the lowest ; and this 
inequality is in like manner founded in truth. Extraordinary 
situations, which intensely occupy the head and throw mighty 
passions into play, give elevation and tension to the soul : it 
collects together all its powers, and exhibits an unusual 
energy, both in iis operations and in its communications by 
language. On the other hand, even the greatest men have^ 
their moments of remissness, when to a certain degree they 
forget the dignity of their character in unreserved relaxation. 
This very tone of mind is necessary before they can receive 
amusement from the jokes of others, or what surely cannot 
dishonour even a hero, from passing jokes themselves. Let 
any person, for example, go carefully through the part of 
Hamlet. How bold and powerful the language of his poetry 
when he conjures the ghost of his father, when he spurs him- 
self on to the bloody deed, when he thunders into the soul of 
his mother ! How he lowers his tone down to that of com- 
mon life, when he has to do with persons whose station 
demands from him such a line of conduct ; when he makes 
game of Polonius and the courtiers, instructs the player, and 
even enters into the jokes of the grave-digger. Of all the 
poet's serious leading characters there is none so rich in 
wit and humour as Hamlet; hence he it is of all of them 
that makes the greatest use of the familiar style. Others, 
again, never do fall into it; either because they are con- 
stantly surrounded by the pomp of rank, or because a uniform 
seriousness is natural to them ; or, in short, because through 
the whole piece they are under the dominion of a passion 
calculated to excite, and not, like the sorrow of Hamlet, to 
depress the mind. The choice of the one form or the other 
is everywhere so appropriate, and so much founded in the 
nature of the thing, that I will venture to assert, even where 
the poet in the very same speech makes the speaker leave 
prose for poetry, or the converse, this could not be altered 
without danger of injuring or destroying some beauty or 



376 SHAKSPEARE — HIS IAMBICS, A COMPLETE MODEL. 

otlier, Tlie blank verse lias tliis advantage, tliat its tone 
may be elevated or lowered; it admits of approximation to 
the familiar style of conversation, and never forms such an 
abrupt contrast as tbat, for example, between plain prose and 
the rhyming Alexandrines. 

Shakspeare's Iambics are sometimes highly harmonious 
and full sounding; always varied and suitable to the subject, 
at one time distinguished by ease and rapidity, at another 
they move along with ponderous energy. They never fall out 
of the dialogical character, which may always be traced even 
in the continued discourses of individuals, excepting when 
the latter run into the lyrical. They are a complete model 
of the dramatic use of this species of Averse, which, in English, 
since Milton, has been also used in epic poetry; but in the 
latter it has assumed a quite different turn. Even the irre- 
gularities of Shakspeare's versification are expressive; a 
verse broken off, or a sudden change of rhythmus, coincides 
with some pause in the progress of the thought, or the en- 
trance of another mental disposition. As a proof that he 
purposely violated the mechanical rules, from a conviction 
that too symmetrical a versification does not suit with the 
drama, and on the stage has in the long run a tendency to 
lull the spectators asleep, we may observe that his earlier 
pieces are the most diligently versified, and that in the later 
works, when through practice he must have acquired a greater 
facility, we find the strongest deviations from the regular 
structui-e of the verse. As it served with him merely to 
make the poetical elevation perceptible, he therefore claimed 
the utmost possible freedom in the use of it. 

The views or suggestions of feeling by which he was 
guided in the use of rhyme may likewise be traced with 
almost equal certainty. Not unfrequently scenes, or even 
single speeches, close with a few rhjaniug lines, for the pur- 
pose of more strongly marking the division, and of giving it 
more rounding. This was injudiciously imitated by the 
English tragic poets of a later date ; they suddenly elevated 
the tone in the rhymed lines, as if the person began all at 
once to speak in another language. The practice was wel- 
comed by the actors from its serving as a signal for clapping 
when they made their exit. In Shakspeare, on the other 
hand, the transitions are more easy : all changes of forms are 
brought about insensibly, and as if of themselves. Moreover, 



SHAKSPEARE — HIS USE OF RHYME. 377 

be is generally fond of heiglitening a series of ingenious 
and antithetical sayings by the use of rhyme. We find other 
passages in continued rhyme, where solemnity and theatrical 
pomp were suitable, as, for instance, in the mask"^, as it is 
called. The Tempest, and in the play introduced in Hamlet. 
Of other pieces, for instance, the Midsummer NigMs Dream, 
and Romeo and Juliet, the rhymes form a considerable part; 
either because he may have wished to give them a glowing 
colour, or because the characters appropria.tely utter in a 
more musical tone their complaints or suits of love. In these 
cases he has even introduced rhymed strophes, which ap- 
j^roach to the form of the sonnet, then usual in England. 
The assertion of Malone, that Shakspeare in his youth was 
fond of rhyme, but that he afterwards rejected it, is suffi- 
ciently refuted by his own chronology of the poet's works. 
In some of the earliest, for instance, in the Second and Third 
Part of Henry the Sixth, there are hardly any rhymes ; in 
what is stated to be his last piece. The Ttvelfth Night, or What 
You Will, and in Macbeth, which is proved to have been com- 
posed under the reign of King James, we find them in no 
inconsiderable number. Even in the secondary matters of 
form Shakspeare was not guided by humour and accident, 
but, like a genuine artist, acted invariably on good and solid 
grounds. This we might also show of the kinds of verse 
which he least frequently used ; for instance, if the rhyming 
verses of seven and eight syllables, were we not afraid of 
dwelling too long on merely technical peculiarities. 

In England the manner of handling rhyming verse, and the 
opinion as to its harmony and elegance, have, in the course 
of two centuries, undergone a much greater change than is 
the case with the rhymeless Iambic or blank verse. In the 
former, Dryden and Pope have become models ; these writers 
have communicated the utmost smoothing to rhyme, but they 
have also tied it down to a harmonious uniformity. A 
foreigner, to whom antiquated and new are the same, may 
perhaps feel with greater freedom the advantages of the more 
ancient manner. Certain it is, the rhyme of the present da}?", 
from the too great confinement of the couplet, is unfit for the 
drama. We must not estimate the rhyme of Shakspeare by 
the mode of subsequent times, but by a comparison with his 

* I shall take the opportunity of saying a few words respecting this 
species of drama when I come to speak of Ben Jonson. 



378 SHAKSPEARE — DRYDEN — POPE — SPENSER . 

contemporaries or with Spenser. The comparison will, with- 
out doubt, turn out to his advantage. Spenser is often dif- 
fuse; Shakspeare, though sometimes hard, is always brief and 
vigorous. He has more frequently been induced by the rhyme 
to leave out something necessary than to insert any thing super- 
fluous. Many of his rhymes, however, are faultless : ingeni- 
ous with attractive ease, and rich without false brilliancy. 
The songs interspersed (those, I mean, of the poet himself) are 
generally sweetly playful and altogether musical ; in imagina- 
tion, while we merely read them, we hear their melody. 

The whole of Shakspeare's productions bear the certain stamp 
of his original genius, but yet no writer was ever farther re- 
moved from every thing like a mannerism derived from habit 
or personal peculiarities. Kather is he, such is the diversity 
of tone and colour, which varies according to the quality of 
his subjects he assumes, a very Proteus. Each of his com- 
positions is like a world of its own, moving in its own sphere. 
They are works of art, finished in one pervading style, which 
revealed the freedom and judicious choice of their author. 
If the formation of a work throughout, even in its minutest 
parts, in conformity with a leading idea; if the domination of 
one animating spirit over all the means of execution, deserves 
the name of correctness (and this, excepting in matters of 
grammar, is the only proper sense of the term); we shall 
then, after allowing to Shakspeare all the higher qualities 
which demand our admiration, be also compelled, in most 
cases, to concede to him the title of a correct poet. 

It would be in the highest degree instructive to follow, if 
we could, in his career step by step, an author who at once 
founded and carried his art to perfection, and to go through 
his works in the order of time. But, with the exception of a 
few fixed points, which at length have been obtained, all the 
necessary materials for this are still wanting. The diligent 
Malone has, indeed, made an attempt to arrange, the plays of 
Shakspeare in chronological order; but he himself only gives 
out the result of his labours for hypothetical, and it could not 
possibly be attended with complete success, since he excluded 
from his inquiry a considerable number of pieces which have 
been ascribed to the poet, though rejected as spurious by all 
the editors since Rowe, but which, in my opinion, must, if not 
wholly, at least in great measure be attributed to him*. 

* Were tHs book destined immediately for an English public, I should 



SHAKSPEARE — ^REVIEW OF HIS DRAMAS. 379 



LECTURE XXIV. 

Criticisms on Shakspeare's Comedies. 

The best and easiest mode of reviewing Shakspeare's dramas? 
will be to arrange them in classes. This, it must be owned? 
is merely a makeshift: several critics have declared that 
all Shakspeare's pieces substantially belong to the same 
species, although sometimes one ingredient, sometimes another, 
the musical or the characteristical, the invention of the won- 
derful or the imitation of the real, the pathetic or the comic, 
seriousness or irony, may preponderate in the mixture. 
Shakspeare himself, it would appear, did but laugh at the 
petty endeavours of critics to find out divisions and sub- 
divisions of species, and to hedge in what had been so sepa- 
rated with the most anxious care ; thus the pedantic Polonius 
in Hamlet commends the players, for their knowledge of 
"tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, his- 
torical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical, historical- 
pastoral, scene-undividable, or poem unlimited." On another 
occasion he ridicules the limitation of Tragedy to an unfor- 
tunate catastrophe : 

" And tragical, my noble lord, it is ; 
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself." 
However the division into Comedies, Tragedies, and Historical 
Dramas, according to the usual practice, may in some measure 
be adopted, if we do not lose sight of the transitions and 
affinities. The subjects of the comedies are generally taken 
from novels : they are romantic love tales ; none are alto- 
gether confined to the sphere of common or domestic rela- 

not have hazarded an opinion like this at variance with that which is gene- 
rally received, without supporting it by proofs. The inquiry, however, is 
too extensive for our present limits, and I have therefore reserved it for a 
separate treatise. Besides at the present moment, while I am putting the 
last hand to my Lectures, no collection of Enghsh books but my own is' 
accessible to me. The latter I should have enlarged with a view to this 
object, if the interruption of intercourse with England had not rendered it 
impossible to procure any other than the most common English books. 
On this point, therefore, I must request indulgence. In an Appendix to 
this Lecture I shall merely make a few cursory observations. 



380 shakspeare: the two gentlemen of verona. 

tions : all of tliem possess poetical ornament, some of them 
run into the wonderful or the pathetic. With these two of 
his most famous tragedies are connected by an immediate 
link, Borneo and Juliet and Othello; both true novels, and 
composed on the same principles. In many of the historical 
plays a considerable space is occupied by the comic characters 
and scenes ; others are serious throughout, and leaA^e behind 
a tragical impression. The essential circumstance by which 
they are distinguished is, that the plot bears reference to a 
poetical and national interest. This is not equally the case 
in Hamlet, Lear, and Macbeth; and therefore it is that we do 
not include these tragedies among the historical pieces, though 
the first is founded on an old northern, the second on a 
national tradition; and the third comes even within the era 
of Scottish history, after it ceased to be fabulous. 

Among the comedies. The Tivo Gentlemen of Verona, The 
Tamdng of the Shrew, and The Comedy of Errors, bear many 
traces of an early origin. The Two Gentlemen of Verona 
paints the irresolution of love, and its infidelity to friendship, 
pleasantly enough, but in some degree superficially, we might 
almost say with the levity of mind which a passion suddenly 
entertained, and as suddenly given up, presupposes. The 
faithless lover is at last, on account of a very ambiguous 
repentance, forgiven without much diiSculty by his first mis- 
tress; for the more serious part, the premeditated flight of 
the daughter of a Prince, the capture of her father along 
with herself by a band of robbers, of which one of the Two 
Gentlemen, the betrayed and banished friend, has been against 
his will elected captain : for all this a peaceful solution is 
soon found. It is as if the course of the world was obliged 
to accommodate itself to a transient youthful caprice, called 
love. Julia, who accompanies her faithless lover in the dis- 
guise of a page, is, as it were, a light sketch of the tender 
female figures of a Viola and an Imogen, who, in the latter 
pieces of Shakspeare, leave their home in similar disguises on 
love adventures, a nd to whom aJ peculiar charm is communi- 
cated by the display of the most virginly modesty in their 
hazardous and problematical situation. 

TJie Comedy of Errors is the subject of the Menoechmi of 
Plautus, entirely recast and enriched with new develop- 
ments : of all the works of Shakspeare this is the only 
example of imitation of, or borrowing from, the ancients. 



shakspeare: the taming of the shrew. 381 

To the two twin brothers of the same name are added two 
slaves, also twins, impossible to he distinguished from each 
other, and of the same name. The improbability becomes by 
this means doubled : but when once we have lent ourselves to 
the first, which certainly borders on the incredible, we shall 
not perhaps be disposed to cavil at the second; and if the 
spectator is to be entertained by mere perplexities they can- 
not be too much varied. In such pieces we must, to give to 
the senses at least an appearance of truth, always pre-suppose 
that the parts by which the misunderstandings are occasioned 
are played with masks, and this the poet no doubt observed. 
I cannot acquiesce in the censure that the discovery is too 
long deferred : so long as novelty and interest are possessed 
by the perplexing incidents, there is no need to be in dread 
of wearisomeness. And this is really the case here : matters 
are carried so far that one of the two brothers is first arrested 
for debt, then confined as a lunatic, and the other is forced to 
take refuge in a sanctuary to save his life. In a subject of 
this description it is impossible to steer clear of all sorts of 
low circumstances, abusive language, and blows ; Shakspeare 
has however endeavoured to ennoble it in every possible way. 
A couple of scenes, dedicated to jealousy and love, interrupt 
the course of perplexities which are solely occasioned by the 
illusion of the external senses. A greater solemnity is given 
to the discovery, from the Prince presiding, and from the 
re-union of the long separated parents of the twins who are 
still alive. The exposition, by which the spectators are pre- 
viously instructed while the characters themselves are still 
involved in ignorance, and which Plautus artlessly conveys in 
a prologue, is here masterly introduced in an affecting narra- 
tive by the father. In short, this is perhaps the best of all 
written or possible Mensechmi ; and if the piece be inferior in 
worth to other pieces of Shakspeare, it is merely because 
nothing more could be made of the materials. 

The Taming of the Shrew has the air of an Italian comedy; 
and indeed the love intrigue, which constitutes the main part 
of it, is derived mediately or immediately from a piece of 
Ariosto. The characters and passions are lightly sketched; 
the intrigue is introduced w^ithout much preparation, and in 
its rapid progress impeded by no sort of difficulties ; while, 
in the manner in which Petruchio, though previously cautioned 
us to Katharine, still encounters the risks in marrying her, 



382 shakspeare: the taming or the shrew. 

and contrives to tame her — in all this the character and 
peculiar humour of the English are distinctly visible. The 
colours are laid on somewhat coarsely, but the ground is 
good. That the obstinacy of a young and untamed girl, pos- 
sessed of none of the attractions of her sex, and neither sup- 
ported by bodily nor mental strength, must soon yield to the 
still rougher and more capricious but assumed self-will of a 
man : such a lesson can only be taught on the stage with all 
the perspicuity of a proverb. 

The prelude is still more remarkable than the play itself: 
a drunken tinker, removed in his sleep to a palace, where he 
is deceived into the belief of being a nobleman. The inven- 
tion, however, is not Shakspeare's. Holberg has handled the 
same subject in a masterly manner, and with inimitable truth; 
but he has spun it out to five acts, for which such material is 
hardly sufficient. He probably did not borrow from the English 
dramatist, but like him took the hint from a popular story. 
There are several comic motives of this description, which go 
back to a very remote age, without ever becoming antiquated. 
Here, as well as everywhere else, Shakspeare has proved 
himself a great poet : the whole is merely a slight sketch, but 
in elegance and delicate propriety it will hardly ever be ex- 
celled. Neither has he overlooked the irony which the sub- 
ject naturally suggested: the great lord, who is driven by 
idleness and ennui to deceive a poor drunkard, can make no 
better use of his situation than the latter, who eyerj moment 
relapses into his vulgar habits. The last half of this prelude, 
that in which the tinker, in his new state, again drinks him- 
self out of his senses, and is transformed in his sleep into his 
former condition, is from some accident or other, lost. It 
ought to have followed at the end of the larger piece. The 
occasional remarks of the tinker, during the course of the 
representation of the comedy, might have been improvisatory; 
but it is hardly credible that Shakspeare should have trusted 
to the momentary suggestions of the players, whom he did 
not hold in high estimation, the conclusion, however short, of 
a work which he had so carefully commenced. Moreover, the 
only circumstance which connects the play with the prelude, 
is, that it belongs to the new life of the supposed nobleman 
to have plays acted in his castle by strolling actors. This 
invention of introducing spectators on the stage, who contri- 
bute to the entertainment, has been very wittily used by later 
English poets. 



SHAKSPEARE I LOVE S LABOUR LOST. 383 

Love's Labour Lost is also numbered among the pieces of 
his youth. It is a humorsome display of frolic; a whole 
cornucopia of the most vivacious jokes is emptied into it. 
Youth is certainly perceivable in the lavish superfluity of 
labour in the execution : the unbroken succession of plays on 
words, and sallies of every description, hardly leave the spec- 
tator time to breathe; the sparkles of wit fly about in such 
profusion, that they resemble a blaze of fireworks; while the 
dialogue, for the most part, is in the same hurried style in 
which the passing masks at a carnival attempt to banter each 
other. The young king of Navarre, with three of his cour- 
tiers, has made a vow to pass three years in rigid retirement, 
and devote them to the study of wisdom; for that purpose he 
has banished all female society from his court, and imposed a 
penalty on the intercourse with women. But scarcely has he, 
in a pompous harangue, worthy of the most heroic achieve- 
ments, announced this determination, when the daughter of 
the king of France appears at his court, in the name of her 
old and bed-ridden father, to demand the restitution of a pro- 
vince which he held in pledge. Compelled to give her audi- 
ence, he falls immediately in love with her. Matters fare no 
better with his companions, who on their parts renew an old 
acquaintance with the princess's attendants. Each, in heart, is 
already false to his vow, without knowing that the wish is 
shared by his associates; they overhear one another, as they 
in turn confide their sorrows in a love-ditty to the solitary 
forest: every one jeers and confounds the one who follows 
him. Biron, who from the beginning was the most satirical 
among them, at last steps forth, and rallies the king and the 
two others, till the discovery of a love-letter forces him also 
to hang down his head. He extricates himself and his com- 
panions from their dilemma by ridiculing the folly of the 
broken vow, and, after a noble eulogy on women, invites 
them to swear new allegiance to the colours of love. This 
scene is inimitable, and the crowning beauty of the whole. 
The manner in which they afterwards prosecute their love- 
suits in masks and disguise, and in which they are tricked 
and laughed at by the ladies, who are also masked and dis- 
guised, is, perhaps, spun out too long. It may be thought, 
too, that the poet, when he suddenly announces the death of 
the king of France, and makes the princess postpone her 
answer to the young prince's serious advances till the expira- 



584 SHAKSPEARE : ALL S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 

tion of the period of her mouriiing, and impose, besides, a 
heavy penance on him for his levity, drops the proper comic 
tone. But the tone of raillery, which prevails throughout the 
piece, made it hardly possible to bring about a more satisfac- 
tory conclusion: after such extravagance, the characters could 
not return to sobriety, except under the presence of some 
foreign influence. The grotesque figures of Don Armado, a 
pompous fantastic Spaniard, a couple of pedants, and a clown, 
who between whiles contribute to the entertainment, are the 
creation of a whimsical imagination, and well adapted as foils 
for the wit of so viA'acious a society. 

AlVs Well that Ends Well, Much Ado ahoid Nothing, Measure 
for Measure, and The Merchant of Venice, bear, in so far, a 
resemblance to each other, that, along with the main plot, 
which turns on important relations decisive of nothing less 
than the happiness or misery of life, and therefore is calcu- 
lated to make a powerful impression on the moral feeling, the 
poet, with the skill of a practised artist, has contrived to com- 
bine a number of cheerful accompaniments. Not, however, 
that the poet seems loth to allow full scope to the serious 
impressions: he merely adds a due counterpoise to them in 
the entertainment which he supplies for the imagination and 
the understanding. He has furnished the story with all the 
separate features which are necessary to give to it the appear- 
ance of a real, though extraordinary, event. But he never falls 
into the lachrymose tone of the sentimental drama, nor into 
the bitterness of those dramas which have a moral direction, 
and which are really nothing but moral invectives dramatized. 
Compassion, anxiety, and dissatisfaction become too oppres-' 
sive when they are too long dwelt on, and when the whole of 
a work is given up to them exclusively. Shakspeare always 
finds means to transport us from the confinement of social 
institutions or pretensions, where men do but shut out the 
light and air from each other, into the open space, even before 
we ourselves are conscious of our want. 

AlVs Well that Ends Well is the old story of a young 
maiden whose love looked much higher than her station. She 
obtains her lover in marriage from the hand of the King as 
a reward for curing him of a hopeless and lingering disease, 
by means of a hereditary arcanum of her father, who had 
been in his lifetime a celebrated physician. The young man 
despises her virtue and beauty; concludes the marriage only 



SHAKSPEARE : ALL S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 385 

in appearance, and seeks in tte clangers of war, deliveranca 
from a domestic happiness which wounds his pride. By 
faithful endurance and an innocent fraud, she fulfils the appa- 
rently impossible conditions on which the Count had pro- 
mised to acknowledge her as his Avife. Love appears here in 
humble guise : the wooing is on the woman's side; it is striv- 
ing, unaided by a reciprocal inclination, to overcome the pre- 
judices of birth. But as soon as Helena is united to the 
Count by a sacred bond, though by him considered an op- 
pressive chain, her error becomes her virtue. — She affects us 
by her patient suffering : the moment in which she appears to 
most advantage is when she accuses herself as the persecutor 
of her inflexible husband, and, under the pretext of a pil- 
grimage to atone for her error, privately leaves the house 
of her mother-in-law. Johnson expresses a cordial aversion 
for Count Bertram, and regrets that he should be allowed 
to come ofi' at last with no other punishment than a tem- 
porary shame, nay, even be rewarded with the unmerited 
possession of a virtuous wife. But has Shakspeare ever 
attempted to soften the impression made by his unfeeling 
pride and light-hearted perversity ? He has but given him 
the good qualities of a soldier. And does not the poet paint 
the true way of the world, which never makes much of man's 
injustice to woman, if so-called family honour is preserved ? 
Bertram's sole justification is, that by the exercise of arbi- 
trary power, the King thought proper to constrain him, in a 
matter of such delicacy and private right as the choice of 
a wife. Besides, this story, a^s well as that of Grissel and 
many similar ones, is intended to prove that woman's truth 
and patience will at last triumph over man's abuse of his 
superior power, while other novels and fabliaux are, on the 
other hand, true satires on woman's inconsistency and cun- 
ning. In this piece old age is painted with rare favour : the 
plain honesty of the King, the good-natured impetuosity 
of old Lafeu, the maternal indulgence of the Countess to 
Helena's passion for her sou, seem all as it were to vie with 
each other in endeavours to overcome the arrogauce of the 
young Count. The style of the whole is more sententious 
than imaginative : the glowing colours of fancy could not 
with propriety have been employed on such a subject. In 
the passages where the humiliating rejection of the poor 
Helena is most painfully affecting, the cowardly Parolles 

2b 



386 SHAKSPEARE : MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

steps in to tlie relief of the spectator, Tte mystification by 
which his pretended valour and his shameless slanders are 
unmasked must be ranked among the most comic scenes that 
ever were invented: they contain matter enough for an excel- 
lent comedy, if Shakspeare were not always rich even to 
profusion. Falstaff has thrown Parolles into the shade, 
otherwise among the poet's comic characters he would have 
been still more famous. 

The main plot in Much Ado about Nothing is the same 
with the story of Ariodante and Ginevra in Ariosto; the 
secondary circumstances and development are no doubt very 
difi'erent. The mode in which the innocent Hero before the 
altar at the moment of the wedding, and in the presence 
of her family and many witnesses, is put to shame by a most 
degrading charge, false indeed, yet clothed with every ap- 
pearance of truth, is a grand piece of theatrical effect in 
the true and justifiable sense. The impression would have 
been too tragical had not Shakspeare carefully softened it 
in order to prepare for a fortunate catastrophe. The dis- 
covery of the plot against Hero has been already partly 
made, though not by the persons interested; and the poet 
has contrived, by means of the blundering simplicity of a 
couple of constables and watchmen, to convert the arrest and 
the examination of the guilty individuals into scenes full 
of the most delightful amusement. There is also a second 
piece of theatrical effect not inferior to the first, where 
Claudio, now convinced of his error, and in obedience to the 
penance laid on his fault, thinking to give his hand to a rela- 
tion of his injured bride, whom he supposes dead, discovers 
on her unmasking, Hero herself. The extraordinary suc- 
cess of this play in Shakspeare's own day, and even since 
in England, is, however, to be ascribed more particularly 
to the parts of Benedict and Beatrice, two humoursome beings, 
who incessantly attack each other with all the resources of 
raillery. Avowed rebels to love, they are both entangled 
in its net by a merry plot of their friends to make them 
believe that each is the object of the secret passion of the 
other. Some one or other, not over-stocked with penetration, 
has objected to the same artifice being twice used in entrap- 
ping them; the drollery, however, lies in the very sj'-mmetry 
of the deception. Their friends attribute the whole effect to 
their own device; but the exclusive direction of their raillery 
against each other is in itself a proof of a growing inclination. 



SHAKSPEARE : MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 387 

Their witty vivacity does not even abandon them in the 
avowal of love; and their behaviour only assumes a serious 
appearance for the purpose of defending the slandered Hero. 
This is exceedingly well imagined; the lovers of jesting must 
fix a point beyond which they are not to indulge iu their 
humour, if they would not be mistaken for buffoons by trade. 
In Measure for Measure Shakspeare was compelled, by the 
nature of the subject, to make his poetry more familiar with 
criminal justice than is usual with him. All kinds of proceed- 
ings connected with the subject, all sorts of active or passive 
persons, pass in review before us : the hypocritical Lord 
Deputy, the compassionate Provost, and the hard-hearted 
Hangman; a young man of quality who is to suffer for the 
seduction of his mistress before marriage, loose wretches 
brought in by the police, nay, even a hardened criminal, 
whom even the preparations for his execution cannot awaken 
out of his callousness. But yet, notwithstanding this agitat- 
ing truthfulness, how tender and mild is the pervading tone 
of the picture ! The piece takes improperly its name from 
punishment; the true significance of the whole is the triumph 
of mercy over strict justice; no man being himself so free 
from errors as to be entitled to deal it out to his equals. The 
most beautiful embellishment of the composition is the cha- 
racter of Isabella, who, on the point of taking the veil, is yet 
prevailed upon by sisterly affection to tread again the per- 
plexing ways of the world, while, amid the general corruption, 
the heavenly purity of her mind is not even stained with one 
unholy thought : in the humble robes of the novice she is a 
very angel of light. When the cold and stern Angelo, here- 
tofore of unblemished reputation, whom the Duke has com- 
missioned, during his pretended absence, to restrain, by a 
rigid administration of the laws, the excesses of dissolute 
immorality, is even himself tempted by the virgin charms of 
Isabella, supplicating for the pardon of her brother Claudio, 
condemned to death for a youthful indiscretion ; when at first, 
in timid and obscure language, he insinuates, but at last im- 
pudently avouches his readiness to grant Claudio's life to the 
sacrifice of her honour ; when Isabella repulses his offer with 
a noble scorn; in her account of the interAdew to her brother, 
when the latter at first applauds her conduct, but at length, 
overcome by the fear of death, strives to persuade her to 
consent to dishonour ; — in these masterly scenes, Shakspeare 

2 b2 



388 shakspeare: the merchant op venice. 

lias sounded the deptlis of tlie human heart. The interest 
here reposes altogether on the represented action ; curiosity 
contributes nothing to our delight, for the Duke, in the 
disguise of a Monk, is always present to watch over his' 
dangerous representative, and to avert every evil which could 
possibly be apprehended; we look to him with confidence 
for a happy result. The Duke acts the part of the Monk 
naturally, even to deception; he unites in his person the 
wisdom of the priest and the prince. Only in his wisdom be 
is too fond of round-about ways; his vanity is flattered with 
acting invisibly like an earthly providence; he takes more 
pleasure in overhearing his subjects than governing them in 
the customary way of princes. As he ultimately extends a 
free pardon to all the guilty, we do not see how his original 
purpose, in committing the execution of the laws to other 
hands, of restoring their strictness, has «n any wise been 
accomplished. The poet might have had this irony in view, 
that of the numberless slanders of the Duke, told him by 
the petulant Lucio, in ignorance of the person whom he is 
addressing, that at least which regarded his singularities and 
whims was not ay holly without foundation. It is deserving of 
remark, that Shakspeare, amidst the rancour of religious 
parties, takes a delight in painting the condition of a monk, 
and always represents his influence as beneficial. We find 
in him none of the black and knavish monks, which an 
enthusiasm for Protestantism, rather than poetical inspiration, 
has suggested to some of our modern poets. Shakspeare 
merely gives his monks an inclination to busy themselves in 
the aflairs of others, after renouncing the world for them- 
selves; with respect, however, to pious frauds, he does not 
represent them as very conscientious. Such are the parts 
acted by the monk in Romeo and Juliet, and another in 
Much Ado about Nothing, and even by the Duke, whom, con- 
trary to the well-known proverb, the cowl seems really to 
make a monk. 

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakspeare's most perfect 
works: popular to an extraordinary degree, and calculated 
to produce the most powerful efi"ect on the stage, and at the 
same time a wonder of ingenuity and art for the reflecting 
critic. Shylock, the Jew, is one of the inimitable master- 
pieces of characterization which are to be found only in 
Shakspeare. It is easy for both poet and player to exhibit a 
caricature of national sentiments, modes of speaking, and 



shakspeare: the merchant op venice. 389 

gestures. Shy lock, however, is everything but a common 
Jew : he possesses a strongly-marked and original indivi- 
duality, and yet we perceive a light touch of Judaism in 
everything he says or does. We almost fancy we can hear a 
light whisper of the Jewish accent even in the written words, 
such as we sometimes still find in the higher classes, notwith- 
standing their social refinement. In tranquil moments, all 
that is foreign to the European blood and Christian senti- 
ments is less perceptible, but in passion the national stamp 
comes out more strongly marked. All these inimitable niceties 
the finished art of a great actor can alone properly express. 
Shylock is a man of information, in his own way, even a 
thinker, only he has not discovered the region where human 
feelings dwell; his morality is founded on the disbelief in 
goodness and magnanimity. The desire to avenge the wrongs 
and indignities heaped upon his nation is, after avarice, his 
strongest spring of action. His hate is naturally directed 
chiefly against those Christians who are actuated by truly 
Christian sentiments: a disinterested love of our neighbour 
seems to him the most unrelenting persecution of the Jews. 
The letter of the law is his idol; he refuses to lend an ear to 
the voice of mercy, which, from the mouth of Portia, speaks 
to him with heavenly eloquence : he insists on rigid and 
inflexible justice, and at last it recoils on his own head. 
Thus he becomes a symbol of the general history of his unfor- 
tunate nation. The melancholy and self-sacrificing magna- 
nimity of Antonio is alFectingly sublime. Like a princely 
merchant, he is surrounded with a whole train of noble 
friends. The contrast which this forms to the selfish cruelty 
of the usurer Shylock was necessary to redeem the honour of 
human nature. The danger which almost to the close of the 
fourth act, hangs over Antonio, and which the imagination is 
almost afraid to approach, would fill the mind with too painful 
anxiety, if the poet did not also provide for its recreation and 
diversion. This is eff'ected in an especial manner by the 
scenes at Portia's country-seat, which transport the spectator 
into quite another world. And yet they are closely connected 
with the main business by the chain of cause and efiect: 
Bassanio's preparations for his courtship are the cause of 
Antonio's subscribing the dangerous bond ; and Portia a gain, 
by the counsel and advice of her uncle, a famous lawyer, 
effects the safety of her lover's friend. But the relations of 



390 shakspeare: the merchant op venice. 

the dramatic composition are the while admirably observed in 
yet another respect. The trial between Shylock and Antonio 
is indeed recorded as being a real event, still, for all that, it 
must ever remain an unbeard-of and singular case. Shak- 
sj)eare has therefore associated it with a love intrigue not less 
extraordinary : the one consequently is rendered natural and 
probable by means of the other. A rich, beautiful and clever 
heiress, who can only be won by the solving the riddle — the 
locked caskets — the foreign princes, who come to try the 
venture — all this powerfully excites the imagination with the 
splendour of an olden tale of marvels. The two scenes in 
which, first the Prince of Morocco, in the language of Eastern 
hyperbole, and then the self-conceited Prince of Arragon, make 
their choice among the caskets, serve merely to raise our 
curiosity, and give employment to our wits; but on the third, 
where the two lovers stand trembling before the inevitable 
choice, which in one moment must unite or separate them for 
ever, Shakspeare has lavished all the charms of feeling — all 
the magic of poesy. We share in the rapture of Portia and 
Bassanio at the fortunate choice : we easily conceive why 
they are so fond of each other, for they are both most deserv- 
ing of love. The judgment scene, with which the fourth act 
is occupied, is in itself a perfect drama, concentrating in 
itself the interest of the whole. The knot is now untied, and 
according to the common ideas of theatrical satisfaction, the 
curtain ought to drop. But the poet was unwilling to dismiss 
his audience with the gloomy impressions which Antonio's 
acquittal, effected with so much difficulty, and contrary to all 
expectation, and the condemnation of Shylock, were calculated 
to leave behind them; he has therefore added the fifth act by 
way of a musical afterlude in the piece itself. The episode of 
Jessica, the fugitive daughter of the Jew, in whom Shakspeare 
has contrived to throw a veil of sweetness over the national 
features, and the artifice by which Portia and her companion 
are enabled to rally their newly-married husbands, supply him 
with the necessary materials. The scene opens with the 
playful prattling of two lovers in a summer evening; it is 
followed by soft music, and a rapturous eulogy on this 
powerful disposer of the human mind and the world; the 
principal characters then make their appearance, and after a 
simulated quarrel, which is gracefully maintained, the whole 
end with the most exhilarating mirth. 



shakspeare: as you like it. 391 

As You Like It is a piece of an entirely different descrip- 
tion. It would be difficult to bring the contents within the 
compass of an ordinary narrative; nothing takes place, or 
rather what is done is not so essential as what is said; even 
what may be called the denouement is brought about pretty 
arbitrarily. Whoever can perceive nothing but what can as 
it were be counted on the fingers, will hardly be disposed to 
allow that it has any plan at all. Banishment and flight 
have assembled together, in the forest of Arden, a strange 
band : a Duke dethroned by his brother, who, with the faith- 
ful companions of his misfortune, lives in the wilds on the 
produce of the chase; two disguised Princesses, who love each 
other with a sisterly affection ; a witty court fool ; lastly, the 
native inhabitants of the forest, ideal and natural shepherds 
and shepherdesses. These lightly-sketched figures form a 
motley and diversified train; we see always the shady 
dark-green landscape in the background, and breathe in 
imagination the fresh air of the forest. The hours are here 
measured by no clocks, no regulated recurrence of duty or of 
toil: they flow on unnumbered by voluntary occupation or 
fanciful idleness, to which, according to his humour or dis- 
position, every one yields himself, and this unrestrained free- 
dom compensates them all for the lost conveniences of life. 
One throws himself down in solitary meditation under a tree, 
and indulges in melancholy reflections on the changes of for- 
tune, the falsehood of the world, and the self-inflicted torments 
of social life; others make the woods resound with social and 
festive songs, to the accompaniment of their hunting-horns. 
Selfishness, envy, and ambition, have been left behind in the 
city; of all the human passions, love alone has found an 
entrance into this wilderness, where it dictates the same lan- 
guage alike to the simple shepherd and the chivalrous youth, 
who hangs his love-ditty to a tree. A prudish shepherdess 
falls at first sight in love with Rosalind, disguised in men's 
apparel ; the latter sharply reproaches her with her severity 
to her poor lover, and the pain of refusal, which she feels from 
experience in her own case, disposes her at length to compas- 
sion and requital. The fool carries his philosophical con- 
tempt of external show, and his raillery of the illusion of love 
so far, that he purposely seeks out the ugliest and simplest 
country wench for a mistress. Throughout the whole picture, it 
seems to be the poet's design to show that to call forth the poetry 



392 shakspeare: the twelfth night. 

which has its indwelling in nature and the human mind, nothing 
is wanted but to throw off all artificial constraint, and restore 
both to mind and nature their original liberty. In the 
very progress of the j)iece, the dreamy carelessness of such 
an existence is sensibly expressed : it is even alluded to by 
Shakspeare in the title. Yv^hoever affects to be displeased, if 
in this romantic forest the ceremonial of dramatic art is not 
duly observed, ought in justice to be delivered over to the 
wise fool, to be led gently out of it to some prosaical region. 

The Twelfth Night, or What you Will, unites the entertain- 
ment of an intrigue, contrived with great ingenuity, to a rich 
fund of comic characters and situations, and the beauteous 
colours of an ethereal poetry. In most of his plays, Shakspeare 
treats love more as an affair of the imagination than the heart ; 
but here he has taken particular care to remind us that, in his 
language, the some wovd,fcmcy, signified both fancy and love. 
The love of the music-enraptured Duke for Olivia is not 
merely a fancy, but an imagination ; Viola appears at first to 
fall arbitrarily in love with the Duke, whom she serves as a 
page, although she afterwards touches the tenderest strings of 
feeling ; the proud Olivia is captivated by the modest and 
insinuating messenger of the Duke, in whom she is far from 
suspecting a disguised rival, and at last, by a second decep- 
tion, takes the brother for the sister. To these, which I 
might call ideal follies, a contrast is formed by the naked 
absurdities to which the entertaining tricks of the ludicrous 
persons of the piece give rise, under the pretext also of love: 
the silly and T)rofligate Knight's awkward courtship of Olivia, 
and her declaration of love to Viola ; the imagination of the 
pedantic steward Malvolio, that his mistress is secretly in 
love with him, which carries him so far that he is at last shut 
up as a lunatic, and visited by the clown in the dress of a 
priest. These scenes are admirably conceived, and as signifi- 
cant as they are laughable. If this were really, as is asserted, 
Shakspeare's latest work, he must have enjoyed to the last 
the same youthful elasticity of mind, and have carried with 
him to the grave the undiminished fulness of his talents. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor, though properly a comedy 
in the usual acceptation of the word, we shall pass over at 
present, till we come to speak of Henry the Fourth, that we 
may give our opinion of the character of Falstaff in con- 
nexion. 



shakspeare: the midsummer night's dream. 393 

The Midsummer NigMs Dream and The Tempest, may be 
in so far compared together that in both the influence of a 
wonderful world of spirits is interwoven with the turmoil of 
human passions and with the farcical adventures of follj. 
The Midsummer NigMs Dream is certainly an earlier produc- 
tion ; but The Tempest, according to all aj^pearance, was writ- 
ten in Shakspeare's later days: hence most critics^ on the 
supposition that the poet must have continued to improve 
with increasing maturity of mind, have honoured the last piece 
with a marked preference. I cannot, however, altogether 
concur with them : the internal merit of these two works are, 
in my opinion, pretty nearly balanced, and a predilection for 
the one or the other can only be governed by personal taste. 
In profound and original characterization the superiority of 
The Tempest is obvious : as a whole we must always admire 
the masterly skill which he has here displayed in the economy 
of his means, and the dexterity with which he has disguised 
his preparations, — the scaffoldings for the wonderful aerial 
structure. In The Midsummer Night's Dream, on the other 
hand, there flows a luxuriant vein of the boldest and most 
fantastical invention; the most extraordinary combination of 
the most dissimilar ingredients seems to have been brought 
about without effort by some ingenious and lucky accident, 
and the colours are of such clear transparency that we think 
the whole of the variegated fabric may be blown away with 
a breath. The fairy world here described resembles those 
elegant pieces of arabesque, where little genii with butterfly 
wings rise, half embodied, above the flower-cups. Twilight, 
moonshine, dew, and spring perfumes, are the element of these 
tender spirits; they assist nature in embroidering her carpet 
with green leaves, many-coloured flowers, and glittering in- 
sects; in the human world they do but make sport child- 
ishly and waywardly with their beneficent or noxious influ- 
ences. Their most violent rage dissolves in good-natured 
raillery; their passions, stripped of all earthly matter, are 
merely an ideal dream. To correspond with this, the loves 
of mortals are painted as a poetical enchantment, which, by a 
contrary enchantment, may be immediately suspended, and 
then renewed again. The different parts of the plot; the 
wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, Oberon and Titania's quar- 
rel, the flight of the two pair of lovers, and the thea-trical 
manoeuvres of the mechanics, are so lightly and happily inter- 



394 shakspeare: the tempest. 

woven that they seem necessary to each other for the formation 
of a whole. Oberon is desirous of relieving the lovers from 
their perplexities, but greatly adds to them through the mis- 
takes of his minister, till he at last comes really to the aid of 
their fruitless amorous pain, their inconstancy and jealousy, 
and restores fidelity to its old rights. The extremes of fan- 
ciful and vulgar are united when the enchanted Titania 
awakes and falls in love with a coarse mechanic with an ass's 
head, who represents, or rather disfigures, the part of a tra- 
gical lover. The droll wonder of Bottom's transformation is 
merely the translation of a metaphor in its literal sense ; but 
in his behaviour during the tender homage of the Fairy Queen 
we have an amusing proof how much the consciousness of 
such a head-dress heightens the efiect of his usual folly. 
Theseus and Hippolyta are, as it were, a splendid frame for 
the picture; they take no part in the action, but surround it 
with a stately pomp. The discourse of the hero and his 
Amazon, as they course through the forest with their noisy 
hunting-train, works upon the imagination like the fresh 
breath of morning, before which the shapes of night disappear. 
Pyramus and Thisbe is not unmeaningly chosen as the gro- 
tesque play within the play; it is exactly like the pathetic 
part of the piece, a secret meeting of two lovers in the forest, 
and their separation by an unfortunate accident, and closes 
the whole with the most amusing parody. 

The Tempest has little action or progressiA^e movement ; the 
union of Ferdinand and Miranda is settled at their first in- 
terview, and Prospero merely throws apparent obstacles in 
their way; the shipwrecked band go leisurely about the 
island ; the attempts of Sebastian and Antonio on the life of 
the King of Naples, and the plot of Caliban and the drunken 
sailors against Prospero, are nothing but a feint, for we fore- 
see that they will be completely frustrated by the magical 
skill of the latter ; nothing remains therefore but the punish- 
ment of the guilty by dreadful sights which harrow up their 
consciences, and then the discovery and final reconciliation. 
Yet this want of movement is so admirably concealed by the 
most varied display of the fascinations of poetry, and the 
exhilaration of mirth, the details of the execution are so very 
attractive, that it requires no small degree of attention to 
perceive that the denouement is, in some degree, anticipated 
in the exposition. The history of the loves of Ferdinand and 



SHAKSPEARE : THE TEMPEST. 395 

Miranda, developed in a few short scenes, is enchantingly 
beautiful : an affecting union of chivalrous magnanimity on 
the one part, and on the other of the virgin openness of a heart 
which, brought up far from the world on an uninhabited 
island, has never learned to disguise its innocent movements. 
The wisdom of the princely hermit Prospero has a magical 
and mysterious air ; the disagreeable impression left by the 
black falsehood of the two usurpers is softened by the honest 
gossipping of the old and faithful Gonzalo; Trinculo and 
Stephano, two good-for-nothing drunkards, find a worthy as- 
sociate in Caliban ; and Ariel hovers sweetly over the whole 
as the personified genius of the wonderful fable, 

Caliban has become a by-word as the strange creation of a 
poetical imagination. A mixture of gnome and savage, half 
daemon, half brute, in his behaviour we perceive at once the 
traces of his native disposition, and the influence of Prospero's 
education. The latter could only unfold his understanding, 
without, in the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity : 
it is as if the use of reason and human speech were commu- 
nicated to an awkward ape. In inclination Caliban is mali- 
cious, cowardly, false, and base; and yet he is essentially dif- 
ferent from the vulgar knaves of a civilized world, as por- 
trayed occasionally by Shakspeare. He is rude, but not 
vulgar; he never falls into the prosaic and low familiarity of 
his drunken associates, for he is, in his way, a poetical being; 
he always speaks in verse. He has picked up every thing 
dissonant and thorny in language to compose out of it a voca- 
bulary of his own ; and of the whole variety of nature, the 
hateful, repulsive, and pettily deformed, have alone been im- 
pressed on his imagination. The magical world of spirits, 
which the staff of Prospero has assembled on the island, casts 
merely a faint reflection into his mind, as a ray of light which 
falls into a dark cave, incapable of communicating to it either 
heat or illumination, serves merely to set in motion the poi- 
sonous vapours. The delineation of this monster is through- 
out inconceivably consistent and profound, and, notwithstand- 
ing its hatefulness, by no means hurtful to our feelings, as the 
honour of human nature is left untouched. 

In the zephyr-like Ariel the image of air is not to be mis- 
taken, his name even bears an allusion to it ; as, on the other 
hand Caliban signifies the heavy element of earth. Yet they 
are neither of them simple, allegorical personifications but 



396 shakspeare: the winters tale. 

beings indiyldually determined. In general we find in The 
Midsummer NigMs Dream., in The Tempest, in the magical 
part of Macbeth, and wherever Shakspeare avails himself of 
the popular belief in the invisible presence of spirits, and the 
possibility of coming in contact with them, a profound view 
of the inward life of nature and her mysterious springs, which, 
it is true, can never be altogether unknown to the genuine 
poet, as poetry is altogether incompatible with mechanical 
physics, but which few have possessed in an equal degree with 
Dante and himself. 

The Winters Tale is as appropriately named as The Mid- 
summer Night's Dream. It is one of those tales which are 
peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary leisure of a long 
winter evening, and are even attractive and intelligible to 
childhood, while animated by fervent truth in the delineatioa 
of character and passion, and invested with the embellish- 
ments of poetry lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of 
the subject, they transport even manhood back to the golden 
age of imagination. The calculation of probabilities has 
nothing to do with such wonderful and fleeting adventures, 
when all end at last in universal joy; and, accordingly, Shak- 
speare has here taken the greatest license of anachronisms 
and geographical errors ; not to mention other incongruities, 
he opens a free navigation between Sicily and Bohemia, makes 
Giulio Romano the contemporary of the Delphic oracle. The 
piece divides itself in some degree into two plays. Leontes 
becomes suddenly jealous of his royal bosom-friend Polyxenes, 
who is on a visit to his court; makes an attempt on his life, 
from which Polyxenes only saves himself by a clandestine 
flight; — Hermione, suspected of infidelity, is thrown into pri- 
son, and the daughter which she there brings into the world 
is exposed on a remote coast; — the accused Queen, declared 
innocent by the oracle, on learning that her infant son has 
pined to death on her account, falls down in a swoon, and is 
mourned as dead by her husband, who becomes sensible, when 
too late, of his error : all this makes up the three first acts. 
The last two are separated from these by a chasm of sixteen 
years ; but the foregoing tragical catastrophe was only appa- 
rent, and this serves to connect the two parts. The Princess, 
who has been exposed on the coast of Polyxenes's kingdom, 
grows up among low shepherds ; but her tender beauty, her 
noble manners, and elevation of sentiment, bespeak her 



shakspeare: cymbeline. 397 

descent; the Crown Prince Florizel^ in the course of his 
hawking, falls in with her, becomes enamoured, and courts 
her in the disguise of a shepherd ; at a rural entertainment 
Polyxenes discovers their attachment, and breaks out into a 
violent rage ; the two lovers seek refuge' from his persecutions 
at the court of Leontes in Sicily, where the discovery and 
general reconciliation take place. Lastly^ when Leontes be- 
holds, as he imagines, the statue of his lost wife, it descends 
from the niche : it is she herself, the still living Hermione, 
w^ho has kept herself so long concealed; and the piece ends 
with universal rejoicing. The jealousy of Leontes is not, like 
that of Othello, developed through all its causes, symptoms, 
and variations ; it is« brought forward at once full grown and 
mature, and is portrayed as a distempered frenzy. It is a 
passion whose effects the spectator is more concerned with 
than with its origin, and which does not produce the catas- 
trophe, but merely ties the knot of the piece. In fact, the 
poet might perhaps have wished slightly to indicate that Her- 
mione, though virtuous, was too warm in her efforts to please 
Polyxenes; and it appears as if this germ of inclination first 
attained its proper maturity in their children. Nothing can 
be more fresh and youthful, nothing at once so ideally pastoral 
and princely as the love of Florizel and Perdita; of the 
prince, whom love converts into a voluntary shepherd; and 
the princess, who betrays her exalted origin without knowing 
it, and in whose hands nosegays become crowns. Shakspeare 
has never hesitated to place ideal poetry side by side of the 
most vulgar prose : and in the world of reality also this is 
generally the case. Perdita's foster-father and his son are 
both made simple boors, that we may the more distinctly see 
how all that ennobles her belongs only to herself. Autolycus, 
the merry pedlar and pickpocket, so inimitably portrayed, is 
necessary to complete the rustic feast, which Perdita on her 
part seems to render meet for an assemblage of gods in dis- 
guise. 

Cyrribeline is also one of Shakspeare's most wonderful com- 
positions. He has here combined a novel of Boccacio's with 
traditionary tales of the ancient Britons reaching back to the 
times of the first Roman Emperors, and he has contrived, by 
the most gentle transitions, to blend together into one harmo- 
nious whole the social manners of the newest times with 
olden heroic deeds, and even with appearances of the gods. 



398 shakspeare: cymbeline. 

In the character of Imogen no one feature of female excellence 
is omitted : her chaste tenderness, her softness, and her virgin 
pride, her boundless resignation, and her magnanimity towards 
her mistaken husband, by whom she is unjustly persecuted, 
her adventures in disguise, her apparent death, and her reco- 
very, form altogether a picture equally tender ar^d affecting. 
The two Princes, Guiderius and Arviragus, both educated in. 
the wilds, form a noble contrast to Miranda and Perdita. 
Shakspeare is fond of showing the superiority of the natural 
over the artificial. Over the art which enriches nature, he 
somewhere says, there is a higher art created by nature her- 
self*. As Miranda's unconscious and unstudied sweetness is 
more pleasing than those charms which endeavour to capti- 
vate us by the brilliant embellishments of a refined cultiva- 
tion, so in these two youths, to whom the chase has given 
vigour and hardihood, but who are ignorant of their high des- 
tination, and have been brought up apart from human society, 
we are equally enchanted by a naive heroism which leads 
them to anticipate and to dream of deeds of valour, till 
an occasion is offered which they are irresistibly comjDelled to 
embrace. When Imogen comes in disguise to their cave; 
when, with all the innocence of childhood, Guiderius and Ar- 
viragus form an impassioned friendship for the tender boy, in 
whom they neither suspect a female nor their own sister; 

* The passage in Shakspeare here quoted, taken with the context, will 
not bear the consti-uction of the author. The whole runs thus : — 

Yet nature is made better by no mean, 

But nature makes that mean : so, o'er that art 

"VVTiich you say adds to nature, is an art 

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 

A gentler scion to the wildest stock ; 

And make conceive a bark of baser kind 

By bud of nobler race : this is an art 

Which does mend nature, change it rather ; but 

The art itself is nature. Winter's Tale, Act iv. sc. 3. 

Shakspeare does not here mean to institute a comparison between the re- 
lative excellency of that which is innate and that which we owe to instruc- 
tion ; but merely says, that the instruction or art is itself a part of nature. 
The speech is addressed by Polyxenes to Perdita, to persuade her that the 
changes effected in the appearance of flowers by the art of the gardener are 
not to be accounted unnatural ; and the expression of making conceive a 
iarJc of baser Jcind by bud of nobler race (i. e., engrafting), would rather 
lead to the inference, that the mind derived its chief value from the influ- 
ence of culture. — Trans. 



shakspeare: cymbeline. 399 

when, on tlieir return from the chase, they find her dead, then 
*' sing her to the ground," and cover the grave with flowers : — 
these scenes might give to the most deadened imagination a 
new life for poetry. If a tragical event is only apparent, in 
such case, whether the spectators are already aware of it or 
ought merely to suspect it, Shakspeare always knows how to 
mitigate the impression without weakening it : he makes the 
mourning musical, that it may gain in solemnity what it loses 
in seriousness. With respect to the other parts, the wise and 
vigorous Belarius, who after long living as a hermit again be- 
comes a hero, is a venerable figure; the Italian lachimo's 
ready dissimulation and quick presence of mind is quite suit- 
able to the bold treachery which he plays; Cymbeline, the 
father of Imogen, and even her husband Posthumus, during 
the first half of the piece, are somewhat sacrificed, but this 
could not be otherwise ; the false and wicked Queen is merely 
an instrument of the plot ; she and her stupid son Cloton (the 
only comic part in the piece) whose rude arrogance is por- 
trayed with much humour, are, before the conclusion, got rid 
of by merited punishment. As for the heroical part of the 
fable, the war between the Romans and Britons, which brings 
on the denouement, the poet in the extent of his plan had so 
little room to spare, that he merely endeavours to represent it 
iis a mute procession. But to the last scene, where all the 
numerous threads of the knot are untied, he has again given 
Its full development, that he might collect together into one 
focus the scattered impressions of the whole. This example 
and many others are a sufficient refutation of Johnson's asser- 
tion, that Shakspeare usually hurries over the conclusion 
of his pieces. Eather does he, from a desire to satisfy the 
feelings, introduce a great deal which, so far as the under- 
(standing of the denouement requires^, might in a strict sense be 
justly spared : our modern spectators are much more impa- 
tient to see the curtain drop, when there is nothing more to be 
determined, than those of his day could have been. 



400 shakspeare: romeo and juliet. 



LECTURE XXV. 

Criticisms on Shakspeare's Tragedies. 

Borneo and Juliet, and Othello, differ from most of the pieces 
■which we have hitherto examined, neither in the ingredients 
of the composition, nor in the manner of treating them: it is 
merely the direction of the whole that gives them the stamp 
of Tragedy. Romeo and Jid'iet is a picture of love and its 
pitiable fate, in a world whose atmosphere is too sharp for 
this the tenderest blossom of human life. Two beings created 
for each other feel mutual love at the first glance ; every con- 
sideration disappears before the irresistible impulse to live in 
one another; under circumstances hostile in the highest de- 
gree to their union, they unite themselves by a secret mar- 
riage, relying simply on the protection of an invisible power. 
Untoward incidents following in rapid succession, their heroic 
constancy is within a few days put to the proof, till, forcibly 
separated from each other, by a voluntary death they are 
united in the grave to meet again in another world. All this 
is to be found in the beautiful story which Shakspeare has not 
invented, and which, however simply told, will always excite 
a tender sympathy : but it was reserved for Shakspeare to join 
in one ideal picture purity of heart with warmth of imagina- 
tion; sweetness and dignity of manners with passionate inten- 
sity of feeling. Under his handling, it has become a glorious 
song of praise on that inexpressible feeling which ennobles 
the soul and gives to it its highest sublimity, and which ele- 
vates even the senses into soul, while at the same time it is a 
melancholy elegy on its inherent and imparted frailty; it is 
at once the apotheosis and the obsequies of love. It appears 
here a heavenly spark, that, as it descends to the earth, is 
converted into the lightning flash, which almost in the same 
moment sets on fire and consumes the mortal being on whom 
it lights. All that is most intoxicating in the odour of a 
southern spring, — all that is languishing in the song of the 
nightingale, or voluptuous in the first opening of the rose, all 
alike breathe forth from this poem. But even more rapidly 
than the earliest blossoms of youth and beauty decay, does it 



shakspeare: romeo and juliet. 401 

from the first timidly-bold declaration and modest return of 
love hurry on to the most unlimited passion, to an irrevocable 
union ; and tlien hastens, amidst alternating storms of rapture 
and despair, to the fate of the two lovers, who yet appear 
enviable in their hard lot, for their love survives them, and by 
their death they have obtained an endless triumph over every 
separating power. The sweetest and the bitterest love and 
hatred, festive rejoicings and dark forebodings, tender em- 
braces and sepulchral horrors, the fulness of life and self- 
annihilation, are here all brought close to each other ; and yet 
these contrasts are so blended into a unity of impression, that 
the echo which the whole leaves behind in the mind resembles 
a- single but endless sigh. 

The excellent dramatic arrangement, the significance of 
every character in its place, the judicious selection of all the 
circumstances, even the most minute, have already been dwelt 
upon in detail. I shall only request attention to a trait which 
may serve for an example of the distance to which Shakspeare 
goes back to lay the preparatory foundation. The most 
striking and perhaps incredible circumstance in the whole 
story is the liquor given by the Monk to Julia, by which she 
for a number of hours not merely sleeps, but fully resembles 
a corpse, without however receiving the least injury. How 
does the poet dispose us to believe that Father Lorenzo pos- 
sesses such a secret 1 — At his first appearance he exhibits him 
in a garden, where he is collecting herbs and descanting on 
their wonderful virtues. The discourse of the pious old man 
is full of deep meaning : he sees everywhere in nature em- 
blems of the moral world; the same wisdom with which he 
looks through her has also made him master of the human 
heart. In this manner a circumstance of an ungrateful ap- 
pearance, has become the source of a great beauty. 

If Romeo and Juliet shines with the colours of the dawn of 
morning, but a dawn whose purple clouds already announce 
the thunder of a sultry day, Othello is, on the other hand, a, 
strongly shaded picture : we might call it a tragical Rembrandt. 
What a fortunate mistake that the Moor (under which name in 
the original novel, a baptized Saracen of the Northern coast of 
Africa was unquestionably meant), has been made by Shak- 
speare in every respect a negro ! We recognize in Othello the 
wild nature of that glowing zone which generates the most 
ravenous beasts of prey and the most deadly poisons, tamed 

2 c 



402 shakspeare: othello. 

only in appearance by the desire of fame, by foreign laws of 
honour, and by nobler and milder manners. His jealousy is 
not the jealousy of the heart, which is compatible with the 
tenderest feeling and adoration of the beloved object; it is of 
that sensual kind which, in burning climes, has given birth to 
the disgraceful confinement of women and many other un- 
natural usages. A drop of this poison flows in his A'eins, and 
sets his whole blood in the wildest ferment. The Moor seems 
noble, frank, confiding, grateful for the love shown him; and 
he is all this, and, moreover, a hero who spurns at danger, a 
worthy leader of an army, a faithful servant of the state ; but 
the mere physical force of passion puts to flight in one mo- 
ment all his acquired and mere habitual virtues, and gives the 
upper hand to the savage over the moral man. This tymnny 
of the blood over the will betrays itself even in the expression 
of his desire of revenge upon Cassio. In his repentance, a 
genuine tenderness for his murdered wife, and in the j)resence 
of the damning evidence of his deed, the painful feeling of 
annihilated honour at last bursts forth; and in the midst of 
these painful emotions he assails himself with the rage where- 
with a despot punishes a runa way slave. He suflTers as a 
double man ; at once in the higher and the lower sphere into 
which his beingwas divided. — While the Moorbears the nightly 
colour of suspicion and deceit only on his visage, lago is 
black within. He haunts Othello like his evil genius, and 
Math his light (and therefore the more dangerous,) insinua- 
tions, he leaves him no rest; it is as if by means of an unfor- 
tunate afiinity, founded however in nature, this influence was 
by necessity more powerful over him than the voice of his 
good angel Desdemona. A more artful villain than this lago 
was never portrayed; he spreads his nets with a skill which 
nothing can escape. The repugnance inspired by his aims 
becomes tolerable from the attention of the spectators being 
directed to his means : these furnish endless employment to 
the understanding. Cool, discontented, and morose, arrogant 
where he dare be so, but humble and Insinuating when it 
suits his purposes, he is a complete master in the art of dissi- 
mulation; accessible only to selfish emotions, he is thoroughly 
skilled in rousing the passions of others, and of availing 
himself of every opening which they give him. : he is as ex^ 
cellent an observer of men as any one can be who is unac- 
quainted with higher motives of action from his own experi- 
ence ; there is always some truth in his malicious observations 



shakspeare: othello. 403 

on them. He does not merely pretend an obdurate incredu- 
lity as to the virtue of women, he actually entertains it ; and 
this, too, falls in with his whole way of thinking, and makes 
him the more fit for the execution of his purpose. As in 
every thing he sees merely the hateful side, he dissolves in the 
rudest manner the charm which the imagination casts over 
the relation between the two sexes : he does so for the pur- 
pose of revolting Othello's senses, whose heart otherwise 
might easily have convinced him of Desdemona's innocence. 
This must serve as an excuse for the numerous expressions in 
the speeches of lago from which modesty shrinks. If Shak- 
speare had written in our days he would not perhaps have 
dared to hazard them; and yet this must certainly have 
greatly injured the truth of his picture. Desdemona is a 
sacrifice without blemish. She is not, it is true, a high ideal 
representation of sweetness and enthusiastic passion like 
Juliet; full of simplicity, softness, and humility, and so inno- 
cent, that she can hardly form to herself an idea of the possi- 
bility of infidelity, she seems calculated to make the most 
yielding and tenderest of wives. The female propensity wholly 
to resign itself to a foreign destiny has led her into the only 
fault of her life, that of marrying without her father's consent. 
Her choice seems wrong ; and yet she has been gained over 
to Othello by that which inauces the female to honour in 
man her protector and guide, — admiration of his determined 
heroism, and compassion for the sufferings which he had 
undergone. With great art it is so contrived, that from the 
very circumstance that the possibility of a suspicion of her 
own purity of motive never once enters her mind, she is the 
less reserved in her solicitations for Cassio, and thereby does 
but heighten more and more the jealousy of Othello. To 
throw out still more clearly the angelic purity of Desdemona, 
Shakypeare has in Emilia associated with her a companion of 
doubtful virtue. From the sinful levity of this woman it is 
also conceivable that she should not confess the abstraction of 
the handkerchief when Othello violently demands it back: 
this would otherwise be the circumstance in the whole piece 
the most difficult to justify. Cassio is portrayed exactly as 
he ought to be to excite suspicion without actual guilt, — 
amiable and nobly disposed, but easily seduced. The public 
events of the first two acts show us Othello in his most 
glorious aspect, as the support of Venice and the terror of the 

2c2 



404 shakspeare: hamlet. 

Turks: they serve to witlidraw tlie story from the mere 
domestic circle^ just as this is done in Romeo and Juliet by 
the dissensions between the houses of Montague and Capulet. 
No eloquence is capable of painting the overwhelming force 
of the catastrophe in Othello, — the pressure of feelings which 
measure out in a moment the abysses of eternity. 

Hamlet is singular in its kind : a tragedy of thought in- 
spired by continual and never-satisfied meditation on human 
destiny and the dark perplexity of the events of this world, 
and calculated to call forth the very same meditation in the 
minds of the spectators. This enigmatical work resembles 
those irrational equations in which a fraction of unknown 
magnitude always remains, that will in no way admit of so- 
lution. Much has been said, much written, on this piece, and 
yet no thinking head who anew expresses himself on it, will 
(in his view of the connexion and the signification of all the 
parts) entirely coincide with his predecessors. What natu- 
rally most astonishes us, is the fact that with such hidden 
purposes, with a foundation laid in such unfathomable depth, 
the whole should, at a first view, exhibit an extremely popu- 
lar appearance. The dread appearance of the Ghost takes 
possession of the mind and the imagination almost at the 
very commencement; then the play within the play, in which, 
as in a glass, we see reflected the crime, whose fruitlessly 
attempted punishment constitutes the subject-matter of the 
piece; the alarm with which it fills the King; Hamlet's pre- 
tended and Ophelia's real madness; her deatli and burial; 
the meeting of Hamlet and Laertes at her grave; their com- 
bat, and the grand determination ; lastly, the appearance of 
the young hero Fortinbras, who, with warlike pomp, pays the 
last honours to an extinct family of kings ; the interspersion 
of comic characteristic scenes with Polonius, the courtiers, and 
the grave-diggers, which have all of them their signification, 
— all this fills the stage with an animated and varied move- 
ment. The only circumstance from which this piece might be 
judged to be less theatrical than other tragedies of Shakspeare 
is, that in the last scenes the main action either stands still or 
appears to retrograde. This, however, was inevitable, and 
Jay in the nature of the subject. The whole is intended to 
ishow that a calculating consideration, which exhausts all the 
relations and possible consequences of a deed, must cripple the 
pawer of acting; as Hamlet himself expresses it: — 



shakspeare: hamlet. 405 

And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ; 
And enterprises of great pith and moment, 
With this regard, their currents turn awry, 
And lose the name of action. 

Witli respect to Hamlet's character : I cannot, as I understand 
the poet's views, pronounce altogether so favourable a sen- 
tence upon it as Goethe does. He is, it is true, of a highly 
cultivated mind, a prince of royal manners, endowed with the 
finest sense of propriety, susceptible of noble ambition, and 
open in the highest degree to an enthusiastic admiration of 
that excellence in others of which he himself is deficient. He 
acts the part of madness with unrivalled power, convincing 
the persons who are sent to examine into his supposed loss of 
reason, merely by telling them unwelcome truths, and rally- 
ing them with the most caustic wit. But in the resolutions 
which he so often embraces and always leaves unexecuted, 
his weakness is too apparent: he does himself only justice 
when he implies that there is no greater dissimilarity than 
between himself and Hercules. He is not solely impelled by 
necessity to artifice and dissimulation, he has a natural incli- 
nation for crooked ways; he is a hypocrite towards himself; 
his far-fetched scruples are often mere pretexts to cover his 
want of determination: thoughts, as he says on a difi'erent 
occasion, which have 

but one part wisdom 

And ever three parts coward. 

He has been chiefly condemned both for his harshness in re- 
pulsing the love of Ophelia, which he himself had cherished, 
and for his insensibility at her death. But he is too much 
overwhelmed with his own sorrow to have any compassion to 
spare for others ; besides his outward indifference gives us by 
no means the measure of his internal perturbation. On the 
other hand, we evidently perceive in him a malicious joy, 
when he has succeeded in getting rid of his enemies, more 
through necessity and accident, which alone are able to impel 
him to quick and decisive measures, than by the merit of his own 
courage, as he himself confesses after the murder of Polonius, 
and with respect to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet 
has no firm belief either in himself or in anything else : ffom 
expfessions of religious confi^dence he passes over to sceptical 
doubts j he believes in the Ghost of his father as long as he 
sees it, but as soon as it has disappeared, it appears to hici 



406 shakspeare: hamlet. 

almost in the light of a deception*. He has even gone so far 
as to say, " there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking 
makes it so :" with him the poet loses himself here in laby- 
rinths of thought, in which neither end nor beginning is 
discoverable. The stars themselves, from the course of 
events, afford no answer to the question so urgently proposed 
to them. A voice from another world, commissioned it 
would appear, by heaven, demands vengeance for a monstrous 
enormity, and the demand remains without effect ; the crimi - 
nals are at last punished, but, as it were, by an accidental 
blow, and not in the solemn way requisite to convey to the 
world a warning example of justice; irresolute foresight, 
cunning treachery, and impetuous rage, hurry on to a com- 
mon destruction; the less guilty and the innocent are equally 
involved in the general ruin. The destiny of humanity is 
there exhibited as a gigantic Sphinx, which threatens to pre- 
I cipitate into the abyss of scepticism all who are unable to 
solve her dreadful enigmas. 

As one example of the many niceties of Shakspeare which 
have never been understood, I may allude to the style in 
which the player's speech about Hecuba is conceived. It has 
been the subject of much controversy among the commenta- 
tors, whether this was borrowed by Shakspeare from himself 
or from another, and whether, in the praise of the piece of 
which it is supposed to be a part, he was speaking seriously, 
or merely meant to ridicule the tragical bombast of his con- 
temporaries. It seems never to have occurred to them that this 
speech must not be judged of by itself, but in connexion with 
the place where it is introduced. To distinguish it in the 
play itself as dramatic poetry, it was necessary that it should 
rise above the dignified poetry of the former in the same pro- 
portion that generally theatrical elevation soars above simple 
nature. Hence Shakspeare has composed the play in Hamlet 
altogether in sententious rhymes full of antitheses. But this 
solemn and measured tone did not suit a speech in which vio- 
lent emotion ought to prevail, and the poet had no other 
expedient than the one of which he made choice : overcharging 

* It has been censured as a contradiction, that Hamlet in the soliloquy 
on self-murder should say, 

The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn 

No traveller returns 

For was not the Ghost a returned traveller ? Shakspeare, however, pur- 
posely wished to show, that Hamlet could not fix himself in any conviction 
of any kind whatever. 



shakspeare: macbeth. 407 

the pathos. The language of the speech in question is cer- 
tainly falsely emphatical ; but yet this fault is so mixed up 
with true grandeur^ that a player practised in artificially call- 
ing forth in himself the emotion he is imitating, may certainly 
be carried away by it. Besides, it will hardly be believed that 
Shakspeare knew so little of his art, as not to be aware that a 
tragedy in which ^neas had to make a lengthy epic relation 
of a transaction that happened so long before as the destruc- 
tion of Troy, could neither be dramatical nor theatrical. 

Of Macbeth I have already spoken once in passing, and who 
could exhaust the praises of this sublime work? Since The 
Uicmenides of iS^schylus, nothing so grand and terrible has 
ever been written. The witches are not, it is true, divine 
Eumenides, and are not intended to be: they are ignoble 
and vulgar instruments of hell. A German poet, therefore, 
very ill understood their meaning, when he transformed them 
into mongrel beings, a mixture of fates, furies, and enchan- 
tresses, and clothed them with tragic dignity. Let no man 
venture to lay hand on Shakspeare's works thinking to im- 
prove anything essential : he will be sure to punish himself. 
The bad is radically odious, and to endeavour in any manner 
to ennoble it, is to violate the laws of propriety. Hence, in. 
my opinion, Dante, and even Tasso, have been much more suc- 
cessful in their portraiture of daemons than Milton. Whether 
the age of Shakspeare still believed in ghosts and witches, is 
a matter of perfect indifference for the justification of the use 
which in Hamlet and Macbeth he has made of pre-existing tradi- 
tions. No superstition can be widely diffused without having 
a foundation in human nature : on this the poet builds; he calls 
up from their hidden abysses that dread of the unknown, that 
presage of a dark side of nature, and a world of spirits, which 
philosophy now imagines it has altogether exploded. In this 
manner he is in some degree both the portrayer and the phi- 
losopher of superstition; that is, not the philosopher who 
denies and turns it into ridicule, but, what is still more diffi- 
cult, who distinctly exhibits its origin in apparently irrational 
and yet natural opinions. But when he ventures to make 
arbitrary changes in these popular traditions, he altogether 
forfeits his right to them, and merely holds up his own idle 
fancies to our ridicule. Shakspeare's picture of the witches is 
truly magical : in the short scenes where they enter, he has 
created for them a peculiar language, which, although com- 
posed of the usual elements, still seems to be a collection of 



i08 shakspeare: macbeth. 

formiilce of incantation. The sound of the words, the accumu- 
lation of rhymes, and the rhythmus of the verse, form, as it 
were, the hollow music of a dreary witch-dance. He has been 
abused for using the names of disgusting objects; but he M^ho 
fancies the kettle of the witches can be made effective with 
agreeable aromatics, is as wise as those who desire that hell 
should sincerely and honestly give good advice. These repulsive 
things, from which the imagination shrinks, are here emblems 
of the hostile powers which operate in nature; and the repug- 
nance of our senses is outweighed by the mental horror. 
With one another the witches discourse like women of the 
very lowest class; for this was the class to which witches 
were ordinarily supposed to belong: when, however, they ad- 
dress Llacbeth they assume a loftier tone : their predictions, 
which they either themselves pronounce, or allow their appa- 
ritions to deliver, have all the obscure brevity, the majestic 
solemnity of oracles. 

"VYe here see that the witches are merely instruments; they 
are governed by an invisible spirit, or the operation of such 
great and dreadful events would be above their sphere. With 
what intent did Shakspeare assign the same place to them in 
his play, which they occupy in the history of Macbeth as 
related in the old chronicles ? A monstrous crime is com- 
mitted : Duncan, a venerable old man, and the best of kings, 
is, in defenceless sleep, under the hospitable roof, murdered 
by his subject, whom he has loaded with honours and rewards. 
Natural motives alone seem inadequate, or the perpetrator 
must have been portrayed as a hardened villain. Shakspeare 
wished to exhibit a more sublime picture : an ambitious but 
noble hero, yielding to a deep-laid hellish temptation ; and in 
whom all the crimes to which, iii order to secure the fruits of 
his first crime, he is impelled by necessity, cannot altogether 
eradicate the stamp of native heroism. He has, therefore, 
given a threefold division to the guilt of that crime. The 
first idea comes from that being whose whole activity is 
guided by a lust of Vvdckedness. The weird sisters surprise 
Macbeth in the moment of intoxication of victory, when his 
love of glory has been gratified ; they cheat his eyes by exhi- 
biting to him as the work of fate what in reality can only be 
accomplished by his own deed, and gain credence for all their 
words by the immediate fulfilment of the first jDrediction. 
The opportunity of murdering the King immediately offers; 
the wife of Macbeth conjures him not to let it slip ; she urges 



shakspeare: macbeth. 409 

Iiim on with a fiery eloquence, which has at command all 
those sophisms that serve to throw a false splendour over 
crime. Little more than the mere execution falls to the share 
of Macbeth; he is driven into it, as it were, in a tumult of 
fascination. Repentance immediately follows, nay, even pre- 
cedes the deed, and the stings of conscience leave him rest 
neither night nor day. But he is now fairly entangled in the 
snares of hell; truly frightful is it to behold that same Macbeth, 
who once as a warrior could spurn at death, now that he dreads 
the prospect of the life to come^', clinging with growing anxiety 
to his earthly existence the more miserable it becomes, and 
pitilessly removing out of the way whatever to his dark and 
suspicious mind seems to threaten danger. However much we 
may abhor his actions, we cannot altogether refuse to compas- 
sionate the state of his mind; we lament the ruin of so many 
noble qualities, and even in his last defence we are compelled 
to admire the struggle of a brave will with a cowardly con- 
science. We might believe that we witness in this tragedy 
the over-ruling destiny of the ancients represented in perfect 
accordance with their ideas : the whole originates in a super- 
natural influence, to which the subsequent events seem inevit- 
ably linked. Moreover, we even find here the same ambiguous 
oracles which, by their literal fulfilment, deceive those who 
confide in them. Yet it may be easily shown that the poet 
has, in his Avork, displayed more enlightened views. He 
wishes to show that the conflict of good and evil in this 
world can only take place by the permission of Providence, 
which converts the curse that individual mortals draw down 
on their heads into a blessing to others. An accurate scale is 
followed in the retaliation. Lady Macbeth, who of all the 
human participators in the king's murder is the most guilty, 
is thrown by the terrors of her conscience into a state of in- 
curable bodily and mental disease ; she dies, unlamented by 
her husband, with all the symptoms of reprobation. Macbeth 
is still found worthy to die the death of a hero on the field 
of battle. The noble Macdufi" is allowed the satisfaction of 
saving his country by punishing with his own hand the tyrant 
who had murdered his wife and children. Banquo, by an 
early death, atones for the ambitious curiosity which prompted 
the wish to know his glorious descendants, as he thereby has 
roused Macbeth's jealousy; but he preserved his mind pure 
from the evil suggestions of the witches: his name is blessed 
* We'd jump the life to come. 



410 shakspeare: macbeth. 

in his race, destined to enjoy for a long succession of ages 
that royal dignity which Macbeth could only hold for his 
own life. In the progress of the action, this piece is altogether 
the reverse of Hamlet', it strides forward with amazing ra- 
pidity, from the first catastrophe (for Duncan's murder may 
be called a catastrophe) to the last. " Thought, and done !" 
is the general motto; for as Macbeth says, 

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, 

Unless the deed go with it. 
In every feature we see an energetic heroic age, in the hardy 
North which steels everj nerve. The precise duration of the 
action cannot be ascertained, — years perhaps, according to the 
story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded 
time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly con- 
ceive how so very much could ever have been compressed 
into £0 narrow a space; not merely external events, — the 
very inmost recesses in the minds of the dramatic personages 
are laid open to us. It is as if the drags were taken from 
the wheels of time, and they rolled along without interrup- 
tion in their descent. Nothing can equal this picture in its 
power to excite terror. We need only allude to the circum- 
stances attending the murder of Duncan, the dagger that 
hovers before the eyes of Macbeth, the vision of Ban quo at 
the feast, the madness of Lad}^ Macbeth; what can possibly 
be said on the subject that will not rather weaken the im- 
pression they naturally leave? Such scenes stand alone, and 
are to be found only in this poet ; otherwise the tragic muse 
might exchange her mask for the head of Medusa. 

I wish merely to point out as a secondary circumstance the 
prudent dexterity of Shakspeare, who could still contrive to 
flatter a king by a work in every part of whose j^lan never- 
theless the poetical views are evident. James the First drew 
his lineage from Banquo ; he was the first who united the 
threefold sceptre of England, Scotland, and Ireland: this is 
foreshown in the magical vision, when a long series of glori- 
ous successors is promised to Banquo. Even the gift of the 
English kings to heal certain maladies by the touch, which 
James pretended to have inherited from Edward"^ the Con- 
* The naming of Edward the Confessor gives us at the same time the 
epoch in which these historically accredited transactions are made to take 
place. The ruins of Macbeth's palace are yet standing at Inverness ; the 
present Earls of Fife are the descendants of the valiant Macduff, and down 
to the union of Scotland with England they were in the enjoyment of 
peculiar privileges for their services to the crown. 



shakspeare: king leak. 411 

fessor, and on which he set a great value, is brought in very 
naturally. —With such occasional matters we may well 
allow ourselves to be pleased without fearing from them any 
danger to poetry : by similar allusions ^schylus endeavoured 
to recommend the Areopagus to his fellow-citizens^ and So- 
phocles to celebrate the glory of Athens. 

As in Macbeth terror reaches its utmost heiglit, in King 
Lear the science of compassion is exhausted. The principal 
characters here are not those who act, but those who sufier. 
We have not in this, as in most tragedies, the picture of a 
calamity in which the sudden blows of fate seem still to 
honour the head which they strike, and where the loss is 
always accompanied by some flattering consolation in the 
memory of the former possession ; but a fall from the highest 
elevation into the deepest abyss of misery, where humanity is 
stripped of all external and internal advantages, and given 
up a prey to naked helplessness. The threefold dignity of a 
king, an old man, and a father, is dishonoured by the cruel 
ingratitude of his unnatural daughters; the old Lear, who out 
of a foolish tenderness has given away every thing, is driven 
out to the world a wandering beggar ; the childish imbecility 
to which he was fast advancing changes into the wildest 
insanity, and when he is rescued from the disgraceful destitu- 
tion to which he was abandoned, it is too late : the kind con- 
solations of filial care and attention and of true friendship are 
now lost on him ; his bodily and mental powers are destroyed 
beyond all hope of recovery, and all that now remains to him 
of life is the capability of loving and suffering beyond measure. 
What a picture we have in the meeting of Lear and Edgar in 
a tempestuous night and in a wretched hovel ! The youthful 
Edgar has, by the wicked arts of his brother, and through 
his father's blindness, fallen, as the old Lear, from the rank 
to which his birth entitled him ; and, as the only means of 
escaping further persecution, is reduced to assume the dis- 
guise of a beggar tormented by evil spirits. The King's fool, 
notwithstanding the voluntary degradation which is implied 
in his situation, is, after Kent, Lear's most faithful associate, 
his wisest counsellor. This good-hearted fool clothes reason 
with the livery of his motley garb; the high-born beggar 
acts the part of insanity; and both, were they even in reality 
what they seem, would still be enviable in comparison with 
the King, who feels that the violence of his grief threatens 
to overpower his reason. The meeting of Edgar with the 



412 shakspeare: king lear. 

blinded Gloster is equally lieart-rending ; nothing can be 
more affecting tlian to see tlie ejected sou become the father's 
guide, and the good angel, who under the disguise of insanity, 
saves him by an ingenious and pious fraud from the horror 
and despair of self-murder. But who can possibly enumerate 
all the different combinations and situations by which our 
minds are here as it were stormed by the poet ? Respecting 
the structure of the whole I will only make one observation. 
The story of Lear and his daughters was left by Shakspeare 
exactly as he found it in a fabulous tradition, with all the 
features characteristical of the simplicity of old times. But 
in that tradition there is not the slightest trace of the story 
of Gloster and his sons, which was derived by Shakspeare 
from another source. The incorporation of the two stories 
has been censured as destructive of the unity of action. But 
whatever contributes to the intrigue or the denouement must 
always possess unity. And with what ingenuity and skill 
are the two main parts of the composition dovetailed into one 
another! The pity felt by Gloster for the fate of Lear 
becomes the means which enables his son Edmund to effect 
his complete destruction, and affords the outcast Edgar an 
opportunity of being the saviour of his father. On the other 
hand, Edmund is active in the cause of Regan and Gonerill; 
and the criminal passion which they both entertain for him 
induces them to execute justice on each other and on them- 
selves. The laws of the drama have therefore been suiS- 
ciently complied with ; but that is the least : it is the very 
combination which constitutes the sublime beauty of the 
work. The two cases resembles each other in the main : an 
infatuated father is blind towards his well-disposed child, and 
the unnatural children, whom he prefers, requite him by the 
ruin of all his happiness. But all the circumstances are so dif- 
ferent, that these stories, while they each make a correspon- 
dent impression on the heart, form a complete contrast for the 
imagination. Were Lear alone to suffer from his daughters, 
the impression would be limited to the powerful compassion 
felt by us for his private misfortune. But two such unheard- 
of examples taking place at the same time have the appear- 
ance of a great commotion in the moral world : the picture 
becomes gigantic, and fills us with such alarm as we should 
entertain at the idea that the heavenly bodies might one day 
fall from their appointed orbits. To save in some degree the 
honour of human nature^ Shakspeare never wishes his spec- 



shakspeare: king lear. 413 

tators to forget that tlie story takes place in a dreary and 
barbarous age : he lays particular stress on tlie circumstance 
that the Britons of that day were still heathenS;, although he 
has not made all the remaining circumstances to coincide 
learnedly with the time which he has chosen. From this 
point of view we must judge of many coarsenesses in expi-es- 
sion and manners; for instance, the immodest manner in 
which Gloster acknowledges his bastard, Kent's quarrel with 
the Steward, and more especially the cruelty personally in- 
flicted on Gloster by the Duke of Cornwall. Eyen the virtue 
of the honest Kent bears the stamp of an iron age, in which 
th^ good and the bad display the same uncontrollable energy. 
Great qualities have not been superfluously assigned to the 
King ; the poet could command our sympathy for his situa- 
tion, without concealing what he had done to bring himself 
into it. Lear is choleric, overbearing, and almost childish 
from age, when he drives out his youngest daughter because 
she will not join in the hypocritical exaggerations of her 
sisters. But he has a warm and afiectionate heart, which is 
susceptible of the most fervent gratitude; and even rays of a 
high and kingly disposition burst forth from the eclipse of 
his understanding. Of Cordelia's heavenly beauty of soul, 
painted in so few words, I will not venture to speak ; she can 
only be named in the same breath with Antigone. Her death 
has been thought too cruel; and in England the piece is in 
acting so far altered that she remains victorious and happy 
I must own, I cannot conceive what ideas of art and dramatic 
connexion those persons have Avho sujjpose that we can at 
pleasure tack a double conclusion to a tragedy; a melan- 
choly one for hard-hearted spectators, and a happy one for 
souls of a softer mould. After surviving so many sufierings, 
Lear can only die ; and what more truly tragic end for him 
than to die from grief for the death of Cordelia? and if he 
is also to be saved and to pass the remainder of his days in. 
happiness, the whole loses its signification. According to 
Shakspeare's plan the guilty, it is true, are all punished, for 
wickedness destroys itself; but the virtues that would bring 
help and succour are everywhere too late, or overmatched by 
the cunning activity of malice. The persons of this drama 
have only such a faint belief in Providence as heathens may 
be supposed to have; and the poet here wishes to show us 
that this belief requires a wider range than the dark piigrini' 
age on earth to be established in full extent. 



414 shakspeare: coriolanus. 



LECTURE XXVI. 

Criticisms on Shakspeare's Historical Dramas. 

The five tragedies of whicli I have just spoken are de- 
servedly the most celebrated of all the works of Shakspeare. 
In the three last, more especially, we have a display of a 
loftiness of genius which may almost be said to surpass the 
powers of human nature : the mind is as much lost in tie 
contemplation of all the heights and depths of these works as 
our feelings are overpowered by the first impression which 
they produce. Of his historical plays, however, some possess 
a high degree of tragical perfection, and all are distinguished 
by peculiar excellencies. 

In the three Roman pieces, Coriolanus^ Julius Cossar, and 
Antony and Cleopatra, the moderation with which Shakspeare 
excludes foreign appendages and arbitrary suppositions, and 
yet fully satisfies the wants of the stage, is particularly de- 
serving of admiration. These plays are the very thing itself; 
and under the apparent artlessness of adhering closely to 
history as he found it, an uncommon degree of art is con- 
cealed. Of every historical transaction Shakspeare knows 
how to seize the true poetical point of view, and to give 
unity and rounding to a series of events detached from the 
immeasurable extent of history without in any degree 
changing them. The public life of ancient Rome is called up 
from its grave, and exhibited before our eyes with the utmost 
grandeur and freedom of the dramatic form, and the heroes 
of Plutarch are ennobled by the most eloquent poetry. 

In Coriolanus we have more comic intermixtures than in 
the others, as the many-headed multitude j^lays here a con- 
siderable part; and when Shakspeare portrays the blind 
movements of the people in a mass, he almost always gives 
himself up to his merry humour. To the plebeians, whose 
folly is certainly sufficiently conspicuous already, the original 
old satirist Menenius is added by way of abundance. Droll 
scenes arise of a description altogether peculiar, and which 
are compatible only with such a political drama; for instance, 
when Coriolanus, to obtain the consulate, must solicit the 



shakspeare: julius c^sar. 415 

lower order of citizens whom lie holds in contempt for their 
cowardice in war, but cannot so far master his haughty dis- 
position as to assume the customary humility, and yet extorts 
from them their votes. 

I have already shown"^ that the piece of Julius Coesar, to 
complete the action, requires to be continued to the fall of 
Brutus and Cassius. Ccesar is not the hero of the piece, but 
Brutus. The amiable beauty of this character, his feeling 
and patriotic heroism, are portrayed with peculiar care. Yet 
the poet has pointed out with great nicety the superiority of 
Cassius over Brutus in independent volition and discernment 
in judging of human affairs; that the latter from the purity 
of his mind and his conscientious love of justice, is unfit to bo 
the head of a party in a state entirely corrupted; and that 
these very faults give an unfortunate turn to the cause of the 
conspirators. In the part of Caesar several ostentatious 
speeches have been censured as unsuitable. But as he never 
appears in action, we have no other measure of his greatness 
than the impression which he makes upon the rest of the 
characters, and his peculiar confidence in himself. In this 
Csesar was by no means deficient, as we learn from history 
and his own writings ; but he displayed it more in the easy 
ridicule of his enemies than in pompous discourses. The 
theatrical effect of this play is injured by a partial falling off of 
the last two acts compared with the preceding in external 
splendour and rapidity. The first appearance of Ciesar in 
festal robes, when the music stops, and all are silent when- 
ever he opens his mouth, and when the few words which he 
utters are received as oracles, is truly magnificent; the con- 
spiracy is a true conspiracy, which in stolen interviews and 
in the dead of night prepares the blow which is to be struck 
in open day, and which is to change the constitution of the 
world ; — the confused thronging before the murder of Csesar, 
the general agitation even of the perpetrators after the deed, 
are all portrayed with most masterly skill; with the funeral 
procession and the speech of Antony the effect reaches its 
utmost height. Caesa,r's shade is more powerful to avenge 
his fall than he himself was to guard against it. After the 
overthrow of the external splendour and greatness of the 
conqueror and ruler of the world, the intrinsic grandeur of 
character of Brutus and Cassius is all that remain to fill the 
* Page 240. 



416 siiakspeare: antony and cleopatra. 

stage and occupy the minds of the spectators : suitably to their 
name, as the last of the Romans, they stand there, in some 
degree alone; and the forming a great and hazardous deter- 
mination is more powerfully calculated to excite our expec- 
tation, than the supporting the conseq^uences of the deed with 
heroic firmness. 

A ntony and Cleopatra may, in some measure, be considered 
as a continuation of Julius Ccesar : the two principal characters 
of Antony and Augustus are equally sustained in both pieces. 
Antony and Cleopatra is a play of great extent; the progress 
is less simple than in Jidius Caesar. The fulness and variety 
of political and warlike events, to which the union of the 
three divisions of the Roman world under one master neces- 
sarily gave rise, were perhaps too great to admit of being 
clearly exhibited in one dramatic picture. In this consists 
the great difficulty of the historical drama : — it must be a 
crowded extract, and a living development of history; — the 
difficulty, however, has generally been successfully overcome 
by Shakspeare. But now many things, which are transacted 
iu the background, are here merely alluded to, in a manner 
which supposes an intimate acquaintance with the history; 
but a work of art should contain, within itself, every thing 
necessary for its being fully understood. Many persons of 
historical importance are merely introduced in passing; the 
preparatory and concurring circumstances are not sufficiently 
collected into masses to avoid distracting our attention. 
The principal personages, however, are most emphatically 
distinguished by lineament and colouring, and powerfully 
arrest the imagination. In Antony we observe a mixture of 
great qualities, weaknesses, and vices ; violent ambition and 
ebullitions of magnanimity; we see him now sinking into 
luxurious enjoyment and then nobly ashamed of his own 
aberrations, — manning himself to resolutions not unworthy of 
himself, which are always shipwrecked against the seductions 
of an artful woman. It is Hercules in the chains of Omphale, 
drawn from the fabulous heroic ages into history, and invested 
with the Roman costume. The seductive arts of Cleopatra 
are in no respect veiled over; she is an ambiguous being 
made up of royal pride, female vanity, luxury, inconstancy, 
and true attachment. Although the mutual passion of herself 
and Antony is without moral dignity, it still excites our 83^1- 
pathy as an insurmountable fascination :— they seem formed 



shakspeare: timon of Athens. 417 

for eacli other, and Cleopatra is as remarkable for her seduc- 
tive charms as Antony for the splendour of his deeds. As 
they die for each other, we forgive them for having lived for 
each other. The open and lavish character of Antony is 
admirably contrasted with the heartless littleness of Octavius, 
whom Shakspeare seems to have completely seen through, 
without allowing himself to be led astray by the fortune and 
the fame of Augustus. 

Timon of A thens, and Troilus and Cressida, are not histo- 
rical plays j but we cannot properly call them either tragedies 
or comedies. By the selection of the materials from anti- 
quity they have some affinity to the Roman pieces, and hence 
I have hitherto^ abstained from mentioning them. 

Timon of A Hiens, of all the works of Shakspeare, possesses 
most the character of satire : — a laughing satire in the picture 
of the parasites and flatterers, and Juvenalian in the bitter- 
ness of Timon's imprecations on the ingratitude of a false world. 
The story is very simply treated, and is definitely divided 
into large masses : — in the first act the joyous life of Timon, 
his noble and hospitable extravagance, and around him the 
throng of suitors of every description; in the second and 
third acts his embarrassment, and the trial which he is 
thereby reduced to make of his supposed friehds, who all desert 
him in the hour of need ; — in the fourth and fifth acts, Timon's 
flight to the woods, his misanthropical melancholy, and his 
death. The only thing which may be called an episode is 
the banishment of Alcibiades, and his return by force of arms. 
However, they are both examples of ingratitude, — the one of 
a state towards its defender, and the other of private friends 
to their benefactor. As the merits of the General towards 
his fellow-citizens suppose more strength of character than 
those of the generous prodigal, their respective behaviours are 
not less different; Timon frets himself to death, Alcibiades 
regains his lost dignity by force. If the poet very properly 
sides with Timon against the common practice of the world, 
he is, on the other hand, by no means disposed to spare 
Timon. Timon was a fool in his generosity; in his discon- 
tent he is a madman: he is every where wanting in the 
wisdom which enables a man in all things to observe the due 
measure. Although the truth of his extravagant feelings ia 
proved by his death, and though when he digs up a treasure 
he spurns the wealth which seems to tempt him, we yet see 

2 D 



418 shakspeare: troilus and cressida. 

distinctly enougli tliat the vanity of wishing to be singular, 
in both the parts that he plays^ had some share in his liberal 
self-forgetfulness, as well as in his anchoritical seclusion. 
This is particularly evident in the incomparable scene where 
the cynic Apemantus visits Timon in the wilderness. They 
have a sort of competition with each other in their trade of 
misanthropy: the Cynic reproaches the impoverished Timon 
with having been merely driven by necessity to take to the 
way of living which he himself had long been following of 
his free choice, and Timon cannot bear the thought of being 
merely an imitator of the Cynic. In such a subject as this 
the due effect could only be produced by an accumulation of 
similar features, still, in the variety of the shades, an amazing 
degree of understanding has been displayed by Shakspeare. 
What a powerfully diversified concert of flatteries and of 
empty testimonies of devotedness ! It is highly amusing to 
see the suitors, whom the ruined circumstances of their 
patron had dispersed, immediately flock to him again when 
they learn that he has been revisited by fortune. On the 
other hand, in the speeches of Timon, after he is undeceived, 
all hostile figures of speech are exhausted, — it is a dictionary 
of eloquent imprecations. 

Troilus and Cressida is the only play of Shakspeare which 
he allowed to be printed without being previously represented. 
It seems as if he here for once wished, without caring for 
theatrical effect, to satisfy the nicety of his peculiar wit, and 
the inclination to a certain guile, if I may say so, in the cha- 
racterization. The whole is one continued irony of that crown 
of all heroic tales, the tale of Troy. The contemptible nature 
of the origin of the Trojan war, the laziness and discord with 
which it was carried on, so that the siege was made to last 
ten years, are only placed in clearer light by the noble 
descriptions, the sage and ingenious maxims with which the 
work overflows, and the high ideas which the heroes enter- 
tain of themselves and each other. Agamemnon's stately 
behaviour, Menelaus' irritation, Nestor's experience, Ulysses' 
cunning, are all productive of no effect; when they have at 
last arranged a single combat between the coarse braggart 
Ajax and Hector, the latter will not fight in good earnest, as 
Ajax is his cousin. Achilles is treated worst : after having 
long stretched himself out in arrogant idleness, and passed his 
time in the company of Thersites the buffoon, he falls upon 
Hector at a moment when he is defenceless, and kills him by 



SHAKSPEARE DRAMAS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 419 

I means of his myrmidons. In all this let no man conceiye 
I that any indignity was intended to the venerable Homer. 
I Shakspeare had not the Iliad before him, but the chivalrous 
I romances of the Trojan war derived from Dares Phrygius. 
From this source also he took the love-intrigue of Troilus and 
1 Oressida, a story at one time so popular in England, that the 
name of Troilus had become proverbial for faithful and ill- 
requited love, and Cressida for female falsehood. The name 
of the agent between them, Pandarus, has even been adopted 
into the English language to signify those personages (panders) 
who dedicate themselves to similar services for inexperienced 
persons of both sexes. The endless contrivances of the cour- 
teous Pandarus to bring the two lovers together, who do not 
stand in need of him, as Cressida requires no seduction, are 
comic in the extreme. The manner in which this treacherous 
beauty excites while she refuses, and converts the virgin 
modesty which she pretends, into a means of seductive allure- 
ment, is portrayed in colours extremely elegant, though cer- 
tainly somewhat voluptuous. Troilus, the pattern of lovers, 
looks patiently on, while his mistress enters into an intrigue 
with Diomed, No doubt, he swears that he will be revenged; 
but notwithstanding his violence in the fight next day, he 
does no harm to any one, and ends with only high-sounding 
threats. In a word, in this heroic comedy, where, from tradi-^ 
tional fame and the pomp of poetry, every thing seems to lay 
claim to admiration, Shakspeare did not wish that any room 
should be left, except, perhaps, in the character of Hector, 
for esteem and sympathy; but in this double meaning of the 
picture, he has afforded us the most choice entertainment. 

The dramas derived from the English history, ten in number, 
form one of the most valuable of Shakspeare's works, and 
partly the fruit of his maturest age. I say advisedly one of 
his works, for the poet evidently intended them to form one 
great whole. It is, as it were, an historical heroic poem in 
the dramatic form, of which the separate plays constitute the 
rhapsodies. The principal features of the events are exhibited 
with such fidelity; their causes, and even their secret springs, 
are placed in such a clear light, that we may attain from 
them a knowledge of history in all its truth, while the living 
picture makes an impression on the imagination which can 
never be effaced. But this series of dramas is intended as the 
vehicle of a much higher and much more general instruction ; 

2d2 



420 SHAKSPEARE — DRAMAS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

it furnislies examples of the political course of the world, ap- 
plicable to all times. This mirror of kings should be the 
manual of young princes; from it they may learn the in- 
trinsic dignity of their hereditary vocation, but they will also 
learn from it the difficulties of their situation, the dangers of 
usurpation, the inevitable fall of tyranny, which buries itself 
under its attempts to obtain a firmer foundation ; lastly, the 
ruinous consequences of the weaknesses, errors, and crimes of 
kings, for whole nations, and many subsequent generations. 
Eight of these plays, from Eichard the Second to Richard the 
Third, are linked together in an uninterrupted succession, 
and embrace a most eventful period of nearly a century of 
English history. The events portrayed in them not only 
follow one another, but they are linked together in the closest 
and most exact connexion ; and the cycle of revolts, parties, 
civil and foreign wars, which began with the deposition of 
Eichard II., first ends with the accession of Henry VII. 
to the throne. The careless rule of the first of these 
monarchs, and his injudicious treatment of his own rela- 
tions, drew upon him the rebellion of Bolingbroke; his 
dethronement, however, was, in point of form, altogether 
unjust, and in no case could Bolingbroke be considered 
the rightful heir to the crown. This shrewd founder of the 
House of Lancaster never as Henry IV. enjoyed in peace the 
fruits of his usurpation : his turbulent Barons, the same who 
•aided him in ascending the throne, allowed him not a mo- 
ment's repose uj)on it. On the other hand, he was jealous of 
the brilliant qualities of his son, and this distrust, more than 
any really low inclination, induced the Prince, that he might 
avoid every appearance of ambition, to give himself up to 
dissolute society. These two circumstances form the subject- 
matter of the two parts of Henry the Fourth) the enterprises 
of the discontented make up the serious, and the wild youthful 
frolics of the heir-apparent supply the comic scenes. When 
this warlike Prince ascended the throne under the name of 
Henry V., he was determined to assert his ambiguous title; 
he considered foreign conquests as the best means of guarding 
against internal disturbances, and this gave rise to the glo- 
rious, but more ruinous than profitable, war with France, 
which Shakspeare has celebrated in the drama of Henry the 
Fifth. The early death of this king, the long legal minority 
of Henry VI., 9.nd his perpetual minority in the art of 
government, brought the greatest troubles on England. The 



SHAKSPEARE — DRAMAS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 421 

dissensions of tlie Regents^ and tlie consequently wretclied 
administration^ occasioned the loss of the French conquests; 
and there arose a bold candidate for the crown^ whose title 
was indisputable, if the prescription of three governments 
may not be assumed to confer legitimacy on usurpation. 
Such was the origin of the wars between the Houses of York 
and Lancaster, which desolated the kingdom for a number of 
years, and ended with the victory of the House of York. 
All this Shakspeare has represented in the three parts of 
Henry the Sixth. Edward IV. shortened his life by excesses, 
and did not long enjoy the throne purchased at the expense 
of so many cruel deeds. His brother Richard, who had a 
great share in the elevation of the House of Y'ork, was not 
contented Avith the regency, and his ambition j)aved himself 
a way to the throne through treachery and violence; but his 
gloomy tyranny made him the object of the people's hatred, 
and at length drew on him the destruction which he merited. 
He was conquered by a descendant of the royal house un- 
stained by the guilt of the civil wars, and what might seem 
defective in his title was made good by the merit of freeing 
his country from a monster. With the accession of Henry 
VII. to the thi'one, a new epoch of English history begins : 
the curse seemed at length to be expiated, and the long series 
of usurpations, revolts, and civil wars, occasioned by the 
levity with which the Second Richard sported away his 
crown, was now brought to a termination. 

Such is the evident connexion of these eight plays with 
each other, but they were not, however, composed in chrono- 
logical order. According to all appearance, the four last were 
first written; this is certain, indeed, with respect to the three 
parts of Henry the Sixth; and Richard the Third is not only 
from its subject a continuation of these, but is also composed 
in the same style. Shakspeare then went back to Richard 
the Second, and with the most careful art connected the second 
series with the first. The trilogies of the ancients have 
already given us an example of the possibility of forming a 
perfect dramatic whole, which shall yet contain allusions 
to something which goes before, and follows it. In like 
manner the most of these plays end with a very definite 
division in the history: Richa7~d the Second, with the murder 
of that King; the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, with the 
accession of his son to the throne; Henry the Fifth, with the 



422 SHAKSPEARE — DRAMAS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 

conclusion of peace with France; the First Part of Henry the 
Sixth, also, with a treaty of Peace; the third, with the murder 
of Henry, and Edward's deviation to the throne; Richard the 
Third, with his overthrow and death. The First Part of Henry 
the Fourth, and the Second of Henry the Sixth, are rounded off 
in a less satisfactory manner. The revolt of the nobles was 
only half quelled by the overthrow of Percy, and it is there- 
fore continued throagh the following part of the piece. The 
victory of York at St. Alban s could as little be considered a 
decisive OA^ent, in the war of the two houses. Shakspeare 
has fallen into this dramatic imperfection, if wo may so call 
it, for the sake of advantages of much more importance. 
The picture of the civil war Avas too great and too rich in 
dreadful events for a single drama, and yet the uninterrupted 
series of events offered no more convenient resting-place. 
The government of Henry IV. might certainly have been 
comprehended in one piece, but it possesses too little tragical 
interest, and too little historical splendour, to be attractive, 
if handled in a serious manner throughout : hence Shakspeare 
has given to the comic characters belonging to the retinue 
of Prince Henry, the freest development, and the half of the 
space is occupied by this constant interlude between the 
political events. 

The two other historical plays taken from the English his- 
tory are chronologically separate from this series : King John 
reigned nearly two centuries before Richard XL, and between 
Richard III. and Henry VIII. comes the long reign of Henry 
VJL, which Shakspeare justly passed over as unsusceptible 
of dramatic interest. However, these two plays may in 
some measure be considered as the Prologue and the Epi- 
logue to the other eight. In King John, all the political and 
national motives which play so great a part in the following 
pieces are already indicated : wars and treaties with France; 
a usurpation, and the tyrannical actions which it draws after 
it; the influence of the clergy, the factions of the nobles. 
Henry the Eighth again shows us the transition to another 
age; the policy of modern Europe, a refined court-life 
under a voluptuous monarch, the dangerous situation of 
favourites, who, after having assisted in effecting the fall of 
others, are themselves precipitated from power; in a word, 
despotism under a milder form, but not less unjust and cruel. 
By the prophecies on the birth of Elizabeth, Shakspeare has 



shakspeare: kixg john. 423 

in some degree brougljt tis great poem on English history 
down to his own time, as far at least as such recent events 
could be yet handled with security. He composed probably 
the two plays of King John^" and Henry the Eighth at a later 
period, as an addition to the others. 

In King John tbe political and warlike events are dressed 
out with solemn pomp, for the very reason that they possess 
but little of true grandeur. The falsehood and selfishness of 
the monarch speak in the style of a manifesto. Conventional 
dignity is most indispensable where personal dignity is want- 
ing. The bastard Faulconbridge is the witty interpreter of 
this language: he ridicules the secret springs of politics, with- 
out disapproving of them, for he owns that he is endeavouring 
to make his fortune by similar means, and wishes rather to 
belong to the deceivers than the deceived, for in his view of \h.Q 
world there is no other choice. His litigation with his brother 
respecting the succession of his pretended father, by which he 
effects his acknowledgment at court as natural son of the 
most chivalrous king of England, Richard Coeur de Lion, 
forms a very entertaining and original prelude in the play 
itself. When, amidst so many disguises of real sentiments, 
and so much insincerity of expression, the poet shows us 
human nature without a veil, and allows us to take deep views 
of the inmost recesses of the mind, the impression produced is 
only the more deep and powerful. The short scene in which 
John urges Hubert to put out of the way Arthur, his young 
rival for the possession of the throne, is superlatively 
masterly: the cautious criminal hardly ventures to say to 
himself what he wishes the other to do. The young and 
amiable prince becomes a sacrifice of unprincipled ambition : 
his fate excites the warmest sympathy. When Hubert, about 
to put out his eyes with the hot iron, is softened by his 
prayers, our compassion would be almost overwhelming, were 
it not sweetened by the winning innocence of Arthur's 
childish speeches. Constance's maternal despair on her son's 
imprisonment is also of the highest beauty; and even the last 
moments of John — an unjust and feeble prince, whom we can 

* I mean the piece with this title in the collection of his works. There 
is an older King John, in two parts, of which the former is a re-cast : — 
perhaps a juvenile work of Shakspeare, though not hitherto acknowledged 
as such by the English critics. See the disqmsition appended to this Lec- 
ture. 



424 shakspeare: richard the second. 

neither respect nor admire — are yet so portrayed as to ex- 
tinguish our displeasure with him, and fill us with serious 
considerations on the arbitrary deeds and the inevitable fate 
of mortals. 

In Richard the Second, Shakspeare exhibits a noble kingly 
nature, at first obscured by levity and the errors of an un- 
bridled youth, and afterwards purified by misfortune, and 
rendered by it more highly and splendidly illustrious. When 
he has lost the love and reverence of his subjects, and is on 
the point of losing also his throne, he then feels with a bitter 
enthusiasm the high vocation of the kingly dignity and its 
transcendental rights, independent of personal merit or chang- 
able institutions. When the earthly crown is fallen from his 
head, he first appears a king whose innate nobility no humili- 
ation can annihilate. This is felt by a poor groom: he is 
shocked that his master's favourite horse should have carried 
the proud Bolingbroke to his coronation; he visits the captive 
king in prison, and shames the desertion of the great. The 
political incident of the deposition is sketched with extra- 
ordinary knowledge of ihQ world; — the ebb of fortune, on 
the one hand, and on the other, the swelling tide, which 
carries every thing along with it. While Bolingbroke acts 
as a king, and his adherents behave towards him as if he 
really were so, he still continues to give out that he has come 
with an armed band merely to demand his birthright and the 
removal of abuses. The usurpation has been long completed, 
before the word is pronounced and the thing publicly avowed. 
The old John of Gaunt is a model of chivalrous honour : he 
stands there like a pillar of the olden time which he has 
outlived. His son, Henry IV., was altogether unlike 
him : his , character is admirably sustained throughout the 
three pieces in which he appears. We see in it that mixture 
of hardness, moderation, and prudence, which, in fact, enabled 
him to secure the possession of the throne which he had 
violently usurped; but without ojDenness, without true cor- 
diality, and incapable of noble ebullitions, he was so little 
able to render his government beloved, that the deposed 
Richard was even wished back again. 

The first part of Henry the Fourth is particularly brilliant 
in the serious scenes, from the contrast between two young 
heroes. Prince Henry and Percy (with the characteristical name 
of Hotspur.) All the amiability and attractiveness is certainly 



shakspeare: henry the fourth. 425 

on the side of the prince: however familiar he makes himself 
with bad company, we can never mistake him for one of 
them: the ignoble does indeed touch, but it does not contami- 
nate him; and his wildest freaks appear merely as witty 
tricks, by which his restless mind sought to burst through the 
inactivity to which he was constrained, for on the first occa- 
sion which wakes him out of his unruly levity he distinguishes 
himself without effort in the most chivalrous guise. Percy's 
boisterous valour is not without a mixture of rude manners, 
arrogance, and boyish obstinacy; but these errors, which pre- 
pare for him an early death, cannot disfigure the majestic 
image of his noble youth; we are carried away by his fiery 
spirit at the very moment we would most censure it. Shak- 
speare has admirably shown why so formidable a revolt 
against an unpopular and really an illegitimate prince was 
not attended with success : Glendower's superstitious fancies 
respecting himself, the effeminacy of the young Mortimer, the 
ungovernable disposition of Percy, who will listen to no pru- 
dent counsel, the irresolution of his older friends, the want of 
unity of plan and motive, are all characterized by delicate but 
unmistakable traits. After Percy has departed from the 
scene, the splendour of the enterprise is, it is true, at an end; 
there remain none but the subordinate participators in the 
revolts, who are reduced by Henry IV., more by policy 
than by warlike achievements. To overcome this dearth of 
matter, Shakspeare was in the second part obliged to employ 
great art, as he never allowed himself to adorn history with 
more arbitrary embellishments than the dramatic form ren- 
dered indispensable. The piece is opened by confused rumours 
from the field of battle; the powerful impression produced by 
Percy's fall, whose name and reputation were peculiarly 
adapted to be the watchword of a bold enterprise, make him 
in some degree an acting personage after his death. The 
last acts are occupied with the dying king's remorse of con- 
science, his uneasiness at the behaviour of the prince, and 
lastly, the clearing up of the misunderstanding between father 
and son, which make up several most affecting scenes. All 
this, however, would still be inadequate to fill the stage, if 
the serious events were not interrupted by a comedy which 
runs through both parts of the play, which is enriched from 
time to time with new figures, and which first comes to its 
catastrophe at the conclusion of the whole, namely, when 



426 SHAKSPEARE : HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Henry V., immediately after ascending the throne, banishes 
to a proper distance the companions of his youthful excesses, 
who had promised to themselves a rich harvest from his kingly 
favour. 

Falstaff is the crown of Shakspeare's comic invention. 
He has, without exhausting himself, continued this character 
throughout three plays, and exhibited him in every variety of 
situation ; the figure is drawn so definitely and individually, 
that even to the mere reader it conveys the clear impression 
of personal acquaintance. Falstafi* is the most agreeable and 
entertaining knave that ever was portrayed. His con- 
temptible qualities are not disguised : old, lecherous, and dis- 
solute; corpulent beyond measure, and always intent upon 
cherishing his body with eating, drinking, and sleeping; con- 
stantly in debt, and anything but conscientious in his choice 
of means by which money is to be raised; a cowardly soldier, 
and a lying braggart ; a flatterer of his friends before their 
face, and a satirist behind their backs; and yet we are never 
disgusted with him. We see that his tender care of himself 
is without any mixture of malice towards others; he will 
only not be disturbed in the pleasant repose of his sensuality, 
and this he obtains through the activity of his understanding. 
Always on the alert, and good-humoured, ever ready to crack 
jokes on others, and to enter into those of which he is himself 
the subject, so that he justly boasts he is not only witty him- 
self, but the cause of wit in others, he is an admirable com- 
panion for youthful idleness and levity. Under a helpless 
exterior, he conceals an extremely acute mind ; he has always 
at command some dexterous turn whenever any of his free 
jokes begin to give displeasure; he is shrewd in his distinc- 
tions, between those whose favour he has to win and those 
over whom he may assume a familiar authority. He is so 
convinced that the part which he plays can only pass under 
the cloak of wit, that even when alone he is never altogether 
serious, but gives the drollest colouring to his love-intrigues, 
his intercourse with others, and to his own sensual philosophy. 
Witness his inimitable soliloquies on honour, on the influence 
of wine on bravery, his descriptions of the beggarly vaga- 
bonds whom he enlisted, of Justice Shallow, &c. Falstaff 
has about him a whole court of amusing caricatures, who by 
turns make their appearance, without ever throwing him into 
the shade. The adventure in which the Prince; under the 



SHAKSPEARB 1 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 427 

disguise of a robber, compels him to give up tbe spoil wbicb 
he had just taken; the scene where the two act the part of 
the King and the Prince; Falstaff's behaviour in the field, 
his mode of raising recruits, his patronage of Justice Shallow, 
which afterwards takes such an unfortunate turn : — all this 
forms a series of characteristic scenes of the most original 
description, full of pleasantry, and replete with nice and 
ingenious observation, such as could only find a place in a 
historical play like the present. 

Several of the comic parts of Henry the Fonirth are con- 
tinued in The Merry Wives of Windsor. This piece is said to 
have been composed by Shakspeare, in compliance with the 
request of Queen Elizabeth*, who admired the character of 
Falstaff, and wished to see him exhibited once more, and in 
love. In love, properly speaking, Falstaflf could not be; but 
for other purposes he could pretend to be so, and at all 
events imagine that he was the object of love. In the pre- 
sent piece accordingly he pays his court, as a favoured 
Knight, to two married ladies, who lay their heads together 
and agree to listen apparently to his addresses, for the sake 
of making him the butt of their just ridicule. The whole 
plan of the intrigue is therefore derived from the ordinary 
circle of Comedy, but yet richly and artificially interwoven 
with another love aflair. The circumstance which has been 
so much admired in Moliere's School of Women, that a jealous 
individual should be made the constant confidant of his 
rival's progress, had previously been introduced into this 
play, and certainly with much more probability. I would 
not, however, be understood as maintaining that it was the 
original invention of Shakspeare : it is one of those circum- 
stances which must almost be considered as part of the common 
stock of Comedy, and everything depends on the delicacy and 
humour with which it is used. That Falstaff should fall so 
repeatedly into the snare gives us a less favourable opinion 
of his shrewdness than the foregoing pieces had led us to 
form; still it will not be thought improbable, if once we 

* We know witli certainty, that it was acted before the Queen. Many 
local descriptions of Windsor and its neighbourhood, and an allusion in 
which the Order of the Garter is very poetically celebrated, make it credible 
that the play was destined to be first represented on the occasion of some 
festival of the Order at the palace of Windsor, where the Knights of the 
Garter have their hall of meeting. 



428 shakspeare: henry the fifth. 

admit the probability of the first infatuation on whicb the 
whole piece is founded, namely, that he can believe himself 
qualified to inspire a passion. This leads him, notwith- 
standing his age, his corpulency, and his dislike of personal 
inconveniences and dangers, to venture on an enterprise 
which requires the boldness and activity of youth; and the 
situations occasioned by this infatuation are droll beyond all 
description. Of all Shakspeare's pieces, this approaches the 
nearest to the species of pure Comedy : it is exclusively con- 
fined to the English manners of the day, and to the domestic 
relations; the characters are almost all comic, and the dia- 
logue, with the exception of a couple of short love scenes, is 
written in prose. But we see that it was a point of principle 
with Shakspeare to make none of his compositions a mere 
imitation of the prosaic world, and to strip them of all 
poetical decoration : accordingly he has elevated the conclu- 
sion of the comedy by a wonderful intermixture, which suited 
the place where it was probably first represented. A popular 
superstition is made the means of a fanciful mystification* 
of Falstafi"; disguised as the Ghost of a Hunter who, with 
ragged horns, wanders about in the woods of Windsor, he is 
to wait for his frolicsome mistress ; in this plight he is sur- 
prised by a chorus of boys and girls disguised like fairies, 
who, agreeably to the popular belief, are holding their mid- 
night dances, and who sing a merry song as they pinch 
and torture him. This is the last affront put ujDon poor 
Falstaff; and with this contrivance the conclusion of the 
second love affair is made in a most ingenious manner to 
depend. 

King Henry the Fifth is manifestly Shakspeare's favourite 
hero in English history: he paints him as endowed with 
every chivalrous and kingly virtue; open, sincere, affable, 
yet, as a sort of reminiscence of his youth, still disposed to 
innocent raillery, in the intervals between his perilous but 
glorious achievements. However, to represent on the stage 
his whole history subsequent to his accession to the throne, 
was attended with great difficulty. The conquests in France 
were the only distinguished event of his reign ; and war is 
an epic rather than a dramatic object. For wherever men 
act in masses against each other, the appearance of chance 

* This word is French ; but it has lately been adopted by some English 
writers. — Trans. 



shakspeare: henry the fifth. 429 

<!an never wholly be avoided ; whereas it is the business of 
the drama to exhibit to us those determinations which, with 
a certain necessity, issue from the reciprocal relations of 
dijQTerent individuals, their characters and passions. Tn several 
of the Greek tragedies, it is true, combats and battles are 
exhibited, that is, the preparations for them and their results ; 
an i in historical plays war, as the ultima ratio regum, cannot 
altogether be excluded. Still, if we would have dramatic 
interest, war must only be the means by which something 
else is accomplished, and not the last aim and substance of 
the whole. For instance, in Macbeth, the battles which are 
announced at the very beginning merely serve to heighten the 
glory of Macbeth and to fire his ambition; and the combats 
which take place towards the conclusion, before the eyes of 
the spectator, bring on the destruction of the tyrant. It is 
the very same in the Roman pieces, in the most of those 
taken from English history, and, in short, wherever Shak- 
speare has introduced war in a dramatic combination. With 
great insight into the essence of his art, he never paints the 
fortune of war as a blind deity who sometimes favours one 
and sometimes another; without going into the details of the 
art of war, (though sometimes he even ventures on this), he 
allows us to anticipate the result from the qualities of the gene- 
ral, and their influence on the minds of the soldiers; some- 
times, without claiming our belief for miracles, he yet exhibits 
the issue in the light of a higher volition : the consciousness 
of a just cause and reliance on the protection of Heaven give 
courage to the one party, while the presage of a curse hang- 
ing over their undertaking weighs down the other*. In 
Henry the Fifth no opportunity was afl"orded Shakspeare of 
adopting the last- mentioned course, namely, rendering the 
issue of the war dramatic ; but he has skilfully availed himself 
of the first. — Before the battle of Agincourt he paints in 
the most lively colours the light-minded impatience of the 
French leaders for the moment of battle, which to them 

* j35scliylus, with equal wisdom, in the uniformly warlike tragedy of 
the Seven before Thebes, has given to the Theban chiefs foresight, deter- 
mination, and presence of mind; to their adversaries, arrogant audacity. 
Hence aU the combats, excepting that between Eteocles and Polynices, 
turn out in favour of the former. The paternal curse, and the blindness 
to which it gives rise, carry headlong the two brothers to the unnatural 
strife in which they both fall by the hands of each other. — See page 91. 



430 shakspeare: henry the fifth. 

seemed infallibly tlie moment of victory ; on tlie other lian J, 
he paints the uneasiness of the English King and his army in 
their desperate situation, coupled with their firm determi- 
nation, if they must fall, at least to fall with honour. He 
applies this as a general contrast between the French and 
English national characters; a contrast which betrays a par- 
tiality for his own nation, certainly excusable in a poet, espe- 
cially when he is backed with such a glorious document as 
that of the memorable battle in question. He has surrounded 
the general events of the war with a fulness of individual, 
characteristic, and even sometimes comic features. A heavy 
Scotchman, a hot Irishman, a well-meaning, honourable, but 
pedantic Welchman, all speaking in their peculiar dialects, 
are intended to show us that the warlike genius of Henry did 
not merely carry the English with him, but also the other 
natives of the two islands, who were either not yet fully 
united or in no degree subject to him. Several good-for- 
nothing associates of Falstaff among the dregs of the army 
either afford an opportunity for proving Henry's strictness of 
discipline, or are sent home in disgrace. But all this variety 
still" seemed to the poet insufficient to animate a play of 
which the subject was a conquest, and nothing but a conquest. 
He has, therefore, tacked a prologue (in the technical lan- 
guage of that day a chorus) to the beginning of each act. 
These prologues, which unite epic pomp and solemnity with 
lyrical sublimity, and among which the description of the two 
camps before the battle of Agincourt forms a most admirable 
night-piece, are intended to keep the spectators constantly in 
mind, that the peculiar grandeur of the actions described 
cannot be developed on a narrow stage, and that they must, 
therefore, supply, from their own imaginations, the deficiencies 
of the representation. As the matter was not properly 
dramatic, Shakspeare chose to wander in the form also beyond 
the bounds of the species, and to sing, as a poetical herald, 
what he could not represent to the eye, rather than to cripple 
the progress of the action by putting long descriptions in the 
mouths of the dramatic personages. The confession of the 
poet that " four or five most vile and ragged foils, right ill 
disposed, can only disgrace the name of Agincourt," (a scruple 
which he has overlooked in the occasion of many other great 
battles, and among others of that of Philippi,) brings us here 
naturally to the question how far, generally speaking, it may 



shakspeare: henry the fifth. 431 

be suitable and advisable to represent wars and battles on the 
stage. The Greeks have uniformly renounced them : as in 
the whole of their theatrical system they proceeded on ideas 
of grandeur and dignity, a feeble and petty imitation of the 
unattainable would have appeared insupportable in their eyes. 
"With them, consequently, all fighting was merely recounted. 
The principle of the romantic dramatists was altogether differ- 
ent : their wonderful pictures were infinitely larger than their 
theatrical means of visible execution ; the}'- were every where 
obliged to count on the willing imagination of the spectators, 
and consequently they also relied on them in this point. It 
is certainly laughable enough that a handful of awkward 
warriors in mock armour, by means of two or three swords, 
with which we clearly see they take especial care not to do 
the slightest injury to one another, should decide the fate of 
mighty kingdoms. But the opposite extreme is still much 
worse. If we in reality succeed in exhibiting the tumult of a 
great battle, the storming of a fort, and the like, in a manner 
any way calculated to deceive the eye, the power of these 
sensible impressions is so great that they render the spectator 
incapable of bestowing that attention which a poetical work 
of art demands; and thus the essential is sacrificed to the 
accessory. We have learned from experience, that whenever 
cavalry combats are introduced the men soon become secon- 
dary personages beside the four-footed players*. Fortunately, 
in Shakspeare's time, the art of converting the yielding boards 
of the theatre into a riding course had not yet been invented. 
He tells the spectators in the first prologue in Henry the 
Fifth:-- 

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them 
Printing their proud hoofs in the receiving earth. 

When Richard the Third utters the famous exclamation, — 
A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! 

it is no doubt inconsistent to see him both before and after- 
wards constantly fighting on foot. It is however better, per- 
haps, that the poet and player should by overpowering 
impressions dispose us to forget this, than by literal exactness 

* The Greeks, it is true, brought horses on the tragic stage, but only in 
solemn processions, not in the wild disorder of a fight. Agamemnon and 
Pallas, in ^ischylus, make their appearance drawn in a chariot with four 
horses. But their theatres were built on a scale very different from ours. 



432 shakspeare: henry the sixth. 

to expose themselves to external interruptions. With all the 
disadvantages which I have mentioned, Shakspeare and several 
Spanish poets have contrived to derive such great beauties 
from the immediate representation of war, that I cannot bring 
myself to wish they had abstained from it. A theatrical 
manager of the present day will have a middle course to fol- 
low : his art must, in an especial manner, be directed to make 
what he shows us appear only as separate groups of an im- 
mense picture, which cannot be taken in at once by the eye; 
he must convince the spectators that the main action takes 
place behind the stage; and for this purpose he has easy 
means at his command in the nearer or more remote sound of 
warlike music and the din of arms. 

However much Shakspeare celebrates the French conquest 
of Henry, still he has not omitted to hint, after his way, the 
secret springs of this undertaking. Henry was in want of 
foreign war to secure himself on the throne ; the clergy also 
wished to keep him employed abroad, and made an offer 
of rich contributions to prevent the passing of a law which 
would have deprived them of the half of their revenues. His 
learned bishops consequently are as ready to prove to him his 
indisputable right to the crown of France, as he is to allow 
his conscience to be tranquillized by them. They prove that 
the Salic law is not, and never was, applicable to France ; and 
the matter is treated in a more succinct and convincing man- 
ner than such subjects usually are in manifestoes. After his 
renowned battles, Henry wished to secure his conquests by 
marriage with a French princess ; all that has reference to 
this is intended for irony in the play. The fruit of this union, 
from which two nations promised to themselves such happi- 
ness in future, was the weak and feeble Henry VI., under 
whom every thing was so miserably lost. It must not, there- 
fore, be imagined that it was without the knowledge and will 
of the poet that a heroic drama turns out a comedy in his 
hands, and ends in the manner of Comedy with a marriage of 
convenience. 

The three parts of Henry the Sixth^ as I have already re- 
marked, were composed much earlier than the preceding 
pieces. Shakspeare's choice fell first on this period of English 
history, so full of misery and horrors of every kind, because 
the pathetic is naturally more suitable than the characteristic 
to a young poet's mind. We do not yet find here the whole 



SHAKSPEARE : HENRY THE SIXTH. 433 

maturity of his genius, yet certainly its whole strength. Care- 
less as to the apparent unconnectedness of contemporary 
events, he bestows little attention on preparation and develop- 
ment : all the figures follow in rapid succession, and announce 
themselves emphatically for what we ought to take them; 
from scenes where the efiect is sufficiently agitating to form 
the catastrophe of a less extensive plan, the poet perpetually 
hurries us on to catastrophes still more dreadful. The First 
Part contains only the first forming of the parties of the 
White and Red Rose, under which blooming ensigns such 
bloody deeds were afterwards perpetrated; the varying results 
of the war in France principally fill the stage. The wonderful 
saviour of her country, Joan of Arc, is portrayed by Shak- 
spearewith an Englishman's prejudices: yet he at first leaves 
it doubtful whether she has not in reality a heavenly mission ; 
she appears in the pure glory of virgin heroism; by her super- 
natural eloquence (and this circumstance is of the poet's 
invention) she wins over the Duke of Burgundy to the French 
cause ; afterwards, corrupted by vanity and luxury, she has 
recourse to hellish fiends, and comes to a miserable end. To 
her is opposed Talbot, a rough iron warrior, who moves us the 
more powerfully, as, in the moment when he is threatened 
with inevitable death, all his care is tenderly directed to save 
his son, who performs his first deeds of arms under his eye. 
After Talboi: has in vain sacrificed himself, and the Maid of 
Orleans has fallen into the hands of the English, the French 
provinces are completely lost by an impolitic marriage; and 
with this the piece ends. The conversation between the aged 
Mortimer in prison, and Richard Plantagenet, afterwards 
Duke of York, contains an exposition of the claims of the 
latter to the throne: considered by itself it is a beautiful 
tragic elegy. 

In the Second Part, the events more particularly prominent 
are the murder of the honest Protector, Gloster, and its conse- 
quences ; the death of Cardinal Beaufort ; the parting of the 
Queen from her favourite Sufi'olk, and his death by the hands 
of savage pirates ; then the insurrection of Jack Cade under 
an assumed name, and at the instigation of the Duke of York. 
The short scene where Cardinal Beaufort, who is tormented 
by his conscience on account of the murder of Grloster, is 
visited on his death-bed by Henry VI. is sublime beyond all 
praise. Can any other poet be named who has drawn aside 

2e 



434 shakspeare: henry the sixth. 

tte curtain of eternity at tlie close of tliis life with such over- 
powering and awful effect 1 And yet it is not mere horror 
with which the mind is filled, but solemn emotion; a blessing and 
a curse stand side by side ; the pious King is an image of the 
heavenly mercy which, even in the sinner's last moments, 
labours to enter into his soul. The adulterous passion of 
Queen Margaret and Suffolk is invested with tragical dig- 
nity and all low and ignoble ideas carefully kept out of sight. 
Without attempting to gloss over the crime of which both are 
guilty, without seeking to remove our disapprobation of this 
criminal love, he still, by the magic force of expression, con- 
trives to excite in us a sympathy with their sorrow. In the 
insurrection of Cade he has delineated the conduct of a popular 
demagogue, the fearful ludicrousness of the anarchical tumult 
of the people, with such convincing truth, that one would 
believe he was an eye-witness of many of the events of our 
age, which, from ignorance of history, have been considered 
as without example. 

The civil war only begins in the Second Part ; in the 
Third it is unfolded in its full destructive fury. The picture 
becomes gloomier and gloomier; and seems at last to be 
painted rather with blood than with colours. With horror 
we behold fury giving birth to fury, vengeance to vengeance, 
and see that when all the bonds of human society are vio- 
lently torn asunder, even noble matrons became hardened to 
cruelty. The most bitter contempt is the portion of the 
unfortunate ; no one affords to his enemy that pity which he 
will himself shortly stand in need of. With all party is 
family, country, and religion, the only spring of action. As 
York, whose ambition is coupled with noble qualities, prema- 
turely perishes, the object of the whole contest is now either 
to support an imbecile king, or to place on the throne a luxu- 
rious monorch, who shortens the dear-bought possession by 
the gratification of an insatiable voluptuousness. For this 
the celebrated and magnanimous Warwick spends his chi- 
valrous life ; Clifford revenges the death of his father with 
blood-thirsty filial love; and Richard, for the elevation of 
his brother, practises those dark deeds by which he is soon 
after to pave the way to his own greatness. In the midst 
of the general misery, of which he has been the innocent 
cause. King Henry appears like the powerless image of a 
saint, in whose wonder-working influence no man any longer 



shakspeare: richard the third. 435 

believes: he can but sigh and weep over the enormities 
which he witnesses. In his simplicity, however, the gift 
of prophecy is lent to this pious king: in the moment of 
his death, at the close of this great tragedy, he prophe- 
sies a still more dreadful tragedy with which futurity is 
pregnant, as much distinguished for the poisonous wiles of 
cold-blooded wickedness as the former for deeds of savage 
fury. 

The part of Richard III. has become highly celebrated in 
England from its having been filled by excellent performers, 
and this has naturally had an influence on the admiration of 
the piece itself, for many readers of Shakspeare stand in want 
of good interpreters of the poet to understand him properly. 
This admiration is certainly in every respect well founded, 
though I cannot help thinking there is an injustice in consi- 
dering the three parts of Henry the Sixth as of little value 
compared with Richard the Third. These four plays were 
undoubtedly composed in succession, as is proved by the style 
and the spirit in the handling of the subject: the last is de- 
finitely announced in the one which precedes it, and is also 
full of references to it: the same views run through the 
series j in a word, the whole make together only one single 
work. Even the deep characterization of Richard is by no 
means the exclusive property of the piece which bears his 
name : his character is very distinctly drawn in the two last 
parts of Henry the Sixth; nay, even his first speeches lead us 
already to form the most unfavourable anticipations of his 
future conduct. He lowers obliquely like a dark thunder- 
cloud on the horizon, which gradually approaches nearer and 
nearer, and first pours out the devastating elements with 
which it is charged when it hangs over the heads of mortals. 
Two of Richard's most significant soliloquies which enable us 
to draw the most important conclusions with regard to his 
mental temperament, are to be found in The Last Part of 
Henry the Sixth. As to the value and the justice of the actions 
to which passion impels us, we may be blind, but wickedness 
cannot mistake its own nature ; Richard, as well as lago, is a 
villain with full consciousness. That they should say this in 
so many words, is not perhaps in human nature: but the 
poet has the right in soliloquies to lend a voice to the most 
hidden thoughts, otherwise the form of the monologue would, 

2e2 



436 shakspeare; Richard the third. 

generally speaking, be censurable"^. Richard's deformity is 
the expression of his internal malice, and perhaps in part the 
effect of it : for where is the ugliness that would not be sof- 
tened by benevolence and openness 1 He, however, considers 
it as an iniquitous neglect of nature, which justifies him in 
taking his revenge on that human society from which it is the 
means of excluding him. Hence these sublime lines : 

And this word love, wliicli graybeards call divine, 
Be resident in men like one another, 
And not in me. I am myself alone. 

Wickedness is nothing but selfishness designedly unconscien- 
tious ; however it can never do altogether without the form at 
least of morality, as this is the law of all thinking beings, — it 
must seek to found its depraved way of acting on something 
like principles. Although Richard is thoroughly acquainted 
with the blackness of his mind and his hellish mission, he yet 
endeavours to justify this to himself by a sophism : the hap- 
piness of being beloved is denied to him j what then remains 
to him but the happiness of ruling? All that stands in the 
way of this must be removed. This envy of the enjo3niient 
of love is so much the more natural in Richard, as his brother 
Edward, who besides preceded him in the possession of the 
crown, was distinguished by the nobleness and beauty of his 
figure, and was an almost irresistible conqueror of female 
hearts. Notwithstanding his pretended renunciation, Richard 
places his chief A^anity in being able to please and win over 
the women, if not by his figure at least by his insinuating 
discourse. Shakspeare here shows us, with his accustomed 
acuteness of observation, that human nature, even when it is 
altogether decided in goodness or wickeness, is still subject to 
petty infirmities. Richard's favourite amusement is to ridi- 
cule others, and he possesses an eminent satirical wit. He 
entertains at bottom a contempt for all mankind: for he is 
confident of his ability to deceive them, whether as his instru- 
ments or his adversaries. In hypocrisy he is particularly 
fond of using religious forms, as if actuated by a desire of 

* What, however, happens in so many tragedies, where a person is 
made to avow himself a villain to his confidants, is most decidedly un- 
natural. He will, indeed, announce his way of thinking, not, however, under 
damning names, but as something that is understood of itself, and is 
equally approved of by others. 



shakspeare: bichard the third. 437 

''- profaning in the service of hell the religion whose blessings 
^ he had inwardly abjured. 

So much for the main features of Richard's character. The 
8 play named after him embraces also the latter part of the reign 
^ of Edward IV.^ in the whole a period of eight years. It ex- 
5 hibits all the machinations by which Richard obtained the 
throne, and the deeds which he perpetrated to secure himself 
in its possession, which lasted however but two years. Shak- 
speare intended that terror rather than compassion should 
prevail throughout this tragedy : he has rather avoided than 
sought the pathetic scenes which he had at command. Of all 
' the sacrifices to Richard's lust of power, Clarence alone is put 
' to death on the stage : his dream excites a deep horror, and 
proves the omnipotence of the poet's fancy : his conversation 
j with the murderers is powerfully agitating; but the earlier 
' crimes of Clarence merited death, although not from his bro- 
^ ther's hand. The most innocent and unspotted sacrifices are 
the two princes : we see but little of them, and their murder 
■ is merely related. Anne disappears without our learning any 
' thing farther respecting her : in marrying the murderer of her 
husband, she had shown a weakness almost incredible. The 
parts of Lord Rivers, and other friends of the queen, are of 
' too secondary a nature to excite a powerful sympathy ; Hast- 
ings, from his triumph at the fall of his friend, forfeits all 
' title to compassion ; Buckingham is the satellite of the tyrant, 
who is afterwards consigned by him to the axe of the execu- 
tioner. In the background the widowed Queen Margaret 
appears as the fury of the past, who invokes a curse on the 
future : every calamity, which her enemies draw down on 
each other, is a cordial to her revengeful heart. Other female 
voices join, from time to time, in the lamentations and impre- 
cations. But Richard is the soul or rather the daemon, of the 
whole tragedy. He fulfils the promise which he formerly 
made of leading the murderous Macchiavel to school. Not- 
withstanding the uniform aversion with which he inspires us, 
he still engages us in the greatest variety of ways by his pro- 
found skill in dissimulation, his wit, his prudence, his presence 
of mind, his quick activity, and his valour. He fights at last 
against Richmond like a desperado, and dies the honourable 
death of a hero on the field of battle. Shakspeare could not 
change this historical issue, and yet it is by no means satisfac- 
tory to our moral feelings, as Lessing, when speaking of a 



438 shakspeare: henry the fourth. 

German play on the same subject, has very judiciously re- 
marked. How lias Shakspeare solved this difficulty ? By a 
wonderful invention he opens a prospect into the other world, 
and shows us Richard in his last moments already branded 
with the stamp of reprobation. We see Richard and Rich- 
mond in the night before the battle sleeping in their tents; 
the spirits of the murdered victims of the tyrant ascend in 
succession, and pour out their curses against him, and their 
blessings on his adversary. These apparitions are properly 
but the dreams of the two generals represented visibly. It is 
no doubt contrary to probability that their tents should only 
be separated by so small a space; but Shakspeare could 
reckon on poetical spectators who were ready to take the 
breadth of the stage for the distance between two hostile 
camp^, if for such indulgence they were to be recompensed by 
beauties of so sublime a nature as this series of spectres and 
Richard's awakening soliloquy. The catastrophe of Richard 
the Third is, in respect of the external events, very like that 
of Macbeth : we have only to compare the thorough difference 
of handling them to be convinced that Shakspeare has most 
accurately observed poetical justice in the genuine sense of 
the word, that is, as signifying the revelation of an invisible 
blessing or curse which hangs over human sentiments and 
actions. 

Although the last four pieces of the historical series paint 
later events, yet the plays of Henry the Fourth and Fifth 
have, in tone and costume, a much more modern appearance. 
This is partly owing to the number of comic scenes; for the 
comic must always be founded not only in national, but also 
in contemporary manners. Shakspeare, however, seems also 
to have had the same design in the serious part. Bloody 
revolutions and devastations of civil war appear to posterity 
as a relapse into an earlier and more uncultivated condition of 
society, or they are in reality accompanied by such a relapse 
into unbridled savageness. If therefore the propensity of a 
young poetical mind to remove its object to a wonderful dis- 
tance has had an influence on the style in which Henry the 
Sixth and Richard the Third are conceived, Shakspeare has 
been rightly guided by his instinct. As it is peculiar to the 
heroic poem to paint the races of men in times past as colossal 
in strength of body and resolution, so in these plays, the 
voices of a Talbot, a Warwick, a Clifford, and others, so ring 



shakspeare: henry the eighth. 439 

on our ear that we imagine we hear the clanging trumpets of 
foreign or of civil war. The contest of the Houses of York 
and Lancaster was the last outbreak of feudal independence; 
it was the cause of the great and not of the people, who were 
only dragged into the struggle by the former. Afterwards the 
part was swallowed up in the whole, and no longer could any 
one be, like Warwick, a maker of kings. Shakspeare was as 
profound a historian as a poet ; when we compare his Henry 
the Eighth with the preceding pieces, we see distinctly that 
the English nation during the long, peaceable, and economical 
reign of Henry VII., whether from the exhaustion which was 
the fruit of the civil wars, or from more general European 
influences, bad made a sudden transition from the powerful 
confusion of the middle age, to the regular tameness of 
modern times. Henry the Eighth has, therefore, somewhat of 
a prosaic appearance; for Shakspeare, artist-like, adapted 
himself always to the quality of his materials. If others of 
his works, both in elevation of fancy and in energy of pathos 
and character, tower far above this, we have here on the 
other hand occasion to admire his nice powers of discrimina- 
tion and his perfect knowledge of courts and the world. 
What tact was requisite to represent before the eyes of the 
queen* subjects of such a delicate nature, and in which she 
was personally so nearly concerned, without doing violence to 
the truth ! He has unmasked the tyrannical king, and to the 
intelligent observer exhibited him such as he was actually: 
haughty and obstinate, voluptuous and unfeeling, extravagant 
in conferring favours, and revengeful under the pretext of 
justice ; and yet the picture is so dexterously handled that a 
daughter might take it for favourable. The legitimacy of 
Elizabeth's birth depended on the invalidity of Henry's first 
marriage, and Shakspeare has placed the proceedings respect- 
ing his separation from Catharine of Arragon in a very 
doubtful light. We see clearly that Henry's scruples of con- 
science are no other than the beauty of Anne Boleyn. Catha- 

* It is quite clear that Henry the Eighth was written while Elizabeth 
was still alive. We know that Ben Jonson, in the reign of King James 
brought the piece again on the stage with additional pomp, and took the 
liberty of making several changes and additions. Without doubt, the pro- 
phecy respecting James the First is due to Ben Jonson : it would only 
have displeased Elizabeth, and is so ill introduced that we at once recog- 
nize in it a foreign interpolation. 



440 shakspeare: appendix. 

rine is, properly speaking, tLe lieroine of tlie piece ; she excites 
the warmest sympathy by her virtues, her defenceless misery, 
her mild but firm opposition, and her dignified resignation. 
After her, the fall of Cardinal Wolsey constitutes the principal 
part of the business. Henry's whole reign was not adapted 
for dramatic poetry. It would hav^e merely been a repetition 
of the same scenes : the repudiation, or the execution of his 
wives, and the disgrace of his most estimable ministers, whicli 
was usually soon followed by death. Of all that distinguished 
Henry's life Shakspeare has given us sufiicient specimens. 
But as, properly speaking, there is no division in the history 
where he breaks ofi", we must excuse him if he gives us a 
flattering compliment of the great Elizabeth for a fortunate 
catastrophe. The piece ends with the general joy at the 
birth of that princess, and with prophecies of the happiness 
which she was afterwards to enjoy or to difi'use. It was only 
by such a turn that the hazardous freedom of thought in the 
rest of the composition could have passed with impunity: 
Shakspeare was not certainly himself deceived respecting this 
theatrical delusion. The true conclusion is the death of Ca- 
tharine, which under a feeling of this kind, he has placed 
earlier than was conformable to history. 

I havenowgone through all the unquestionably genuine works 
of Shakspeare. I have carefully abstained from all indefinite 
eulogies, which merely serve to prove a disproportion betwixt 
the feeling and the capability of expressing it. To many the 
above observations will appear too difluse for the object and 
plan of these Lectures ; to others they will perhaps seem unsa- 
tisfactory. I shall be satisfied if they place those readers 
who are not yet familiar with the poet in the right point of 
view, and pave the way for a solid knowledge, and if they 
recall to the minds of intelligent critics some of those thoughts 
which have occurred to themselves. 



APPENDIX 

Hespecting the Pieces said to he falsely att^nhuted to ShaJcspeare, 

The commentators of Shakspeare, in their attempts to 
deprive him of parts of his works, or even of whole pieces. 



WORKS ASCRIBED TO HIM. 441 

have for the most part displayed very little of a true critical 
spirit. Pope, as is well known, was strongly disposed to 
reject whole scenes as interpolations by the players; but 
his opinion was not much listened to. However, Steevens 
acceded to the opinion of Pope, as to the apparition of the 
ghosts and of Jupiter, in Cymheline, while Posthumus is sleep- 
ing in the dungeon. But Posthumus finds on waking a tablet 
on his breast, with a prophecy on which the denouement of 
the piece depends. Is it to be imagined that Shakspeare 
would require of his spectators the belief in a wonder without 
a visible cause? Can Posthumus have got this tablet with 
the prophecy by dreaming? But these gentlemen do not 
descend to this objection. The verses which the apparitions 
deliver do not appear to them good enough to be Shakspeare's. 
I imagine I can discover why the poet has not given them 
more of the splendour of diction. It is the aged parents and 
brothers of Posthumus, who, from concern for his fate, return 
from the world below : ought they not consequently to speak 
the language of a more simple olden time, and their voices, 
too, ought they not also to seem a feeble sound of wailing, 
when contrasted with the thundering oracular language of 
Jupiter? For this reason Shakspeare chose a syllabic mea- 
sure which was very common before his time, but which was 
then going out of fashion, though it still continued to be fre- 
quently used, especially in translations of the classical poets. 
in some such manner might the shades express themselves in 
the then existing translations of Homer and Virgil. The 
speech of Jupiter is, on the other hand, majestic, and in 
form and style bears a complete resemblance to Shakspeare's 
sonnets. Nothing but incapacity to appreciate the views of 
the poet, and the perspective observed by him, could lead 
them to stumble at this passage. 

Pope would willingly have declared the Winter s Tale 
spurious, one of the noblest creations of the equally bold and 
lovely fancy of Shakspeare. Why ? I suppose on account 
of the ship coming to Bohemia, and of the chasm of sixteen 
years between the third and fourth acts, which Time as a pro- 
logue entreats us to overleap. 

The Three Parts of Henry the Sixth are now at length 
admitted to be Shakspeare's. Theobald, Warburton, and 
lastly Farmer, affirmed that they were not Shakspeare's. In 
this case, we might well ask them to point out the other works 



442 shakspeare: titus andronicus, 

of the unknown author, who was capable of inventing, among 
many others, the noble death-scenes of Talbot, Suffolk, Beau- 
fort, and York. The assertion is so ridiculous, that in this 
case Richard the Third might also not be Shakspeare's, as it is 
linked in the most immediate manner to the three other pieces, 
both by the subject, and the spirit and style of handling. 

All the editors, with the exception of Capell, are unani- 
mous in rejecting Titus Andronicus as unworthy of Shaks- 
peare, though they always allow it to be printed with the 
other pieces, as the scape-goat, as it were, of their abusive 
criticism. The correct method in such an investigation is first 
to examine into the external grounds, evidences, &c., and to 
weigh their value j and then to adduce the internal reasons 
derived from the quality of the work. The critics of Shaks- 
peare follow a course directly the reverse of this; they set 
out with a preconceived opinion against a piece, and seek, in 
justification of this opinion, to render the historical ground sus- 
picious, and to set them aside. Now Titus Andronicus is to 
be found in the first folio edition of Shakspeare's works, which 
it is known was published by Hemingeand Condell, for many 
years his frinds and fellow-managers of the same theatre. Is 
it possible to persuade ourselves that they would not have 
known if a piece in their repertory did or did not really 
belong to Shakspeare ? And are we to lay to the charge of 
these honourable men an intentional fraud in this single case, 
when we know that they did not show themselves so very 
desirous of scraping everything together which went by the 
name of Shakspeare, but, as it appears, merely gave those 
plays of which they had manuscripts in hand? Yet the fol- 
lowing circumstance is still stronger. George Meres, a con- 
temporary and admirer of Shakspeare, in an enumeration of 
his works, mentions Titus Andronicus, in the year 1598. 
Meres was personally acquainted with the poet, and so very 
intimately, that the latter read over to him his sonnets before 
they were printed. I cannot conceive that all the critical 
scepticism in the world would ever be able to get over such a 
testimony. 

This tragedy, it is true, is framed according to a false idea 
of the tragic, which by an accumulation of cruelties and enor- 
mities, degenerates into the horrible, and yet leaves no deep 
impression behind: the story of Tereus and Philomela is 
heightened and overcharged under other names, and mixed up 



m 



shakspeare: his first poem. 443 



itli the repast of Atreus and Thyestes, and many other inci- 
dents. In detail there is no want of beautiful lines, bold 
images, nay, even features which betray the peculiar concep- 
tion of Shakspeare. Among these we may reckon the joy 
of the treacherous Moor at the blackness and ugliness of his 
adulterous offspring; and in the compassion of Titus Andro- 
nicus, grown childish through grief, for a fly which had been 
struck dead, while his rage afterwards, when he imagines he 
discovers in it his black enemy, we recognize the future poet 
of Lear. Are the critics afraid that Shakspeare's fame would 
be injured, were it established that in his early youth he 
ushered into the world a feeble and immature work ? Was 
Rome the less the conqueror of the world, because Remus 
could leap over its first walls ? Let any one place himself in 
Shakspeare's situation at the commencement of his career. 
He found only a few indifferent models, and yet these 
met with the most favourable reception, because in the 
novelty of an art, men are never difficult to please, before 
their taste has been made fastidious by choice and abundance. 
Must not this situation have had its influence on him before 
he learned to make higher demands on himself, and by dig- 
ging deeper in his own mind, discovered the rich veins of 
noble metal that ran there ? It is even highly probable that 
he must have made several failures before he succeeded in 
getting into the right path. Genius is in a certain sense 
infallible, and has nothing to learn ; but art is to be learned, 
and must be acquired by practice and experience. In Shak- 
speare's acknowledged works we find hardly any traces of his 
apprenticeship, and yet apprenticeship he certainly had. 
This every artist must have, and especially in a period where 
he has not before him the examples of a school already formed. 
I consider it as extremely probable that Shakspeare began to 
write for the theatre at a much earlier period than the one 
which is generally stated, namely, after the year 1590. It 
appears that, as early as the year 1584, when only twenty 
years of age, he had left his paternal home and repaired to 
London. Can we imagine that such an active head would 
remain idle for six whole years without making any attempt 
to emerge by his talents from an uncongenial situation ? That 
in the dedication of the poem of Venus and A donis he calls it 
" the first heir of his invention," proves nothing against the 



444 shakspeare: lochrine — pericles, etc. 

supposition. It was tlie first wliicli lie printed ; lie might have 
composed it at an earlier period; perhaps, also, in this term, 
" heirs of his invention," he did not indulge theatrical labours, 
especially as they then conferred but little to his literary 
dignity. The earlier Shakspeare began to compose for the 
theatre, the less are we enabled to consider the immaturity 
and imperfection of a work a proof of its spuriousness in 
opposition to historical evidence, if only we can discern in 
it prominent features of his mind. Several of the works 
rejected as. spurious, may still have been produced in the 
period betwixt Titus Andronicus, and the earliest of the 
acknowledged pieces. 

At last, in two supplementary volumes, Steevens published 
seven pieces ascribed to Shakspeare. It is to be remarked, 
that they all appeared in print in Shakspeare's life-time, with 
his name prefixed at full length. They are the following : — . 

1. Lochrine. The proofs of the genuineness of this piece 
are not altogether unambiguous; the grounds for doubt, on 
the other hand, are entitled to attention. However, this 
question is immediately connected with that respecting Titus 
Andronicus, and must with it be resolved in the affirmative 
or negative. 

2. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. This piece was acknowledged 
by Dryden to be a work, but a youthful work of Shaksj)eare's. 
It is most undoubtedly his, and it has been admitted into several 
late editions of his works. The supposed imperfections origi- 
nate in the circumstance, that Shakspeare here handled a 
childish and extravagant romance of the old poet Gower, and 
was unwilling to drag the subject out of its proper sphere. 
Hence he even introduces Gower himself, and makes him deli- 
ver a prologue in his own antiquated language and versifica- 
tion. This power of assuming so foreign a manner is at least 
no proof of helplessness. 

3. The London Prodigal. If we are not mistaken, Lessing 
pronounced this piece to be Shakspeare's, and wished to bring 
it on the German stage. 

4. The Puritan; or The Widoiv of Watling Street. One 
of my literary friends, intimately acquainted with Shak- 
speare, was of opinion that the poet must have wished for 
once to write a play in the style of Ben Jonson, and that in 
this way we must account for the dijSference between the pre- 



SHAKSPEARE : CROMWELL — SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE^ ETC. 445 

sent piece and his usual manner. To follow out this idea, 
however, would lead to a long and very nice critical investi- 
gation. 

5. Thomas Lord Cromwell. 

6. 8ir John Oldcastle. — First part. 

7. A Yorkshire Tragedy. 

The three last pieces are not only unquestionably Shak- 
speare's, but in my opinion they deserve to be classed among 
his best and maturest works. Steevens at last admits, in some 
degree, that they, as well as the rest, except Lochrine, are 
Shakspeare's, but he speaks of all of them with great con- 
tempt, as worthless productions. His condemnatory sentence 
is not, however, in the slightest degree convincing, nor is it 
supported by much critical acumen. I should like to see how 
such a critic would, of his own natural suggestion, have 
decided on Shakspeare's acknowledged master-pieces, and how 
much he would have thought of praising in them, had not the 
public opinion already imposed on him the duty of admira- 
tion. Thomas Lord Cromwell and Sir John Oldcastle are 
biographical dramas, and in this species they are models : the 
first, by its subject, attaches itself to Henry the Eighth, and the 
second to Henry the Fifth. The second part of Sir John Oldr- 
castle is wanting ; I know not whether a copy of the old edition 
has been discovered in England, or whether it is lost. The 
Yorkshire Tragedy is a tragedy in one act, a dramatised tale 
of murder : the tragical effect is overpowering, and it is ex- 
tremely important to see how poetically Shakspeare could 
handle such a subject. 

Still farther, there have been ascribed to him, 1st. The Merry 
Devil of Edmonton, a comedy in one act, printed in Dodsley's 
Collection of Old Plays. This has, certainly, some appearance 
in its favour. It contains a merry landlord, who bears great 
similarity to the one in The Merry Wives of Windsor. How- 
ever, at all events, though a clever, it is but a hasty sketch. 
2nd. Tlie Arraignment of Paris. 3rd. The Birth of Merlin. 
4th. Edward the Third. 5th. The Fair Em. (Emma). 6th. 
Mucedorus. 7th. Arden of Fever sham. I have never seen 
any of these, and cannot therefore say anything respecting 
them. From the passages cited, I am led to conjecture that 
the subject of Mucedorus is the popular story of Valentine 
and Orson : a beautiful subject which Lope de Vega has also 
taken for a play. Arden of Fever sham is said to be a tragedy 



446 shakspeare: English theatre continued. 

on the story of a man from wliom the poet descended by th6 
mother's side. This circumstance, if the quality of the piece 
be not too directly at variance with its supposed authorship, 
would afford an additional probability in its favour. For such 
motives were not without their influence on Shakspeare : thus 
he treated with a manifest partiality, Henry VII., who had 
betowed lands on his forefathers for services performed by 
them. 

Of Shakspeare's share in Tlie Two Noble Cousins, it will be 
the time to speak when I come to mention Fletcher's works. 

It would be very instructive, if it could be proved that 
several earlier attempts of works, afterwards re-written, pro- 
ceeded from himself, and not from an unknown author. We 
should thus be best enabled to trace his development as an 
artist. Of the older King John, in two parts, (printed by 
Steevens among six old plays,) this might probably be made 
out. That he sometimes returned to an old piece is certain. 
With respect to Hamlet, for instance, it is well known, that it 
was very gradually formed by him to its present perfect state. 

Whoever takes from Shakspeare a play early ascribed to 
him, and confessedly belonging to his time, is certainly bound 
to answer, with some degree of probability, this question : who 
then wrote it? Shakspeare's competitors in the dramatic 
walk are pretty well known, and if those of them who have 
even acquired a considerable reputatioUj a Lilly, a Marlow, a 
Heywood, are still very far below him, we can hardly imagine 
that the author of a work, which rises so high beyond theirs, 
could have remained unknown. 



LECTURE XXVII. 

Two periods of the English Theatre : the first the most important — The 
first conformation of the Stage, and its advantages — State of the His- 
trionic Art in Shakspeare's time — Antiquities of Dramatic Literatm-e— 
Lilly, Mai-low, Heywood — Ben Jonson — Criticism of his Works — 
Masques — Beaumont and Fletcher — General characterization of these 
Poets, and remarks on some of their Pieces — Massinger and other 
contemporaries of Charles the First. 

The great master of whom we have spoken in the preceding 
Lecture, forms so singular an exception to the whole history 



ANTIQUITIES OF THE ENGLISH THEATRE. 447 

of art; that we are compelled to assign a particular place to 
him. He owed hardly anything to his predecessors, and he 
has had the greatest influence on his successors : but no man ^ 
has yet learned from him his secret. For two whole centuries, 
during which his countrymen have diligently employed them- 
selves in the cultivation of every branch of science and art, 
according to their own confession, he has not only never yet 
been surpassed, but has left every dramatic poet at a great 
distance behind him. 

In the sketch of a history of the English theatre which 
I am now to give, I shall be frequently obliged to return 
to Shakspeare. The dramatic literature of the English is 
very rich; they can boast of a large number of dramatic 
poets, who possessed in an eminent degree the talent of origi- 
nal characterization, and the knowledge of theatrical effect. 
Their hands were not shackled hj prejudices, by arbitrary 
rules, and by the anxious observance of so-called proprieties. 
There has never been in England an academical court of taste; 
in art, as in life, every man there gives his voice for what best 
pleases him, or what is most suitable to his nature. Notwith- 
standing this liberty, their writers have not, however, been 
able to escape the influence either of varying modes, or of the 
spirit of different ages. 

We shall here remain true to our principle of merely dwell- 
ing at length on what we consider as the highest efforts of 
poetry, and of taking brief views of all that occupies but the 
second or third place. 

The antiquities of the English theatre have been sufficiently 
illustrated by the English writers, and especially by Malone. 
The earliest dramatic attempts were here as well as elsewhere 
Mysteries and Moralities. However it would seem that in 
these productions the English distinguished themselves at an 
earlier period than other nations. In the History of the 
Council of Constance it is recorded that the English prelates, 
in one of the intervals between the sittings, entertained their 
brethren with a spiritual play in Latin, such as the latter 
were either entirely unacquainted with, or at least in such 
perfection, (as perfection was understood by the simple ideas 
of art of those times). The beginning of a theatre, properly 
so called, cannot, however, be placed farther back than the 
reign of Elizabeth. John Heywood, the buffoon of Henry 
VIII., is considered as the oldest comic writer: the single 



448 HISTORY OP THE ENGLISH THEATRE. 

Interlude under his name, published in Dodsley's collection, is 
in fact merely a dialogue, and not a drama. But Gammer 
Gurton's Needle, which was first acted about the year 1560, 
certainly deserves the name of a comedy. However anti- 
quated in language and versification, it possesses unequivocal 
merit in the low comic. The whole plot turns on a lost 
needle, the search for which is pursued with the utmost assi- 
duity: the poverty of the persons of the drama, which this 
supposes, and the whole of their domestic condition, is very 
amusingly portrayed, and the part of a cunning beggar espe- 
cially is drawn with much humour. The coarse comic of this 
piece bears a resemblance to that of the Avocat Patelin; yet 
the English play has not, like the French, been honoured with 
a revival on the stage in a new shape. 

The history of the English theatre divides itself naturally 
into two periods. The first begins nearly with the accession 
of Elizabeth, and extends to about the end of the reign of 
Charles I., when the Puritans gained the ascendency, and 
effected the prohibition of all plays whatsoever. The closing 
of the theatres lasted thirteen years; and they were not 
again opened till the restoration of Charles II. This inter- 
ruption, the change which had taken place in the mean time 
on the general way of thinking and in manners, and lastly, 
the influence of the French literature which was then flourish- 
ing, gave quite a different character to the plays subsequently 
written. The works of the older school were indeed in part 
sought out, but the school itself was extinct. I apply the 
term of a " school " to the dramatical poets of the first sera, in 
the same sense as it is taken in art, for with all their personal 
difl'erences we may still perceive on the whole a common cha- 
racter in their productions. Independently of the language 
or contemporary allusions, we should never be disposed to 
take a play of that school, though ignorant of its author, and 
the date of its production, for a work of the more modern 
period. The latter period admits of many subdivisions, but 
with these, however, we may dispense. The talents of the 
authors, and the taste of the public, have fluctuated in every 
possible way; foreign influence has gained more and more the 
ascendency, and (to express myself without circumlocution,) 
the English theatre has in its progress become more and more 
destitute of character and independence. For a critic, who 
everywhere seeks originality, troubling himself little about 



AGE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND OF CHARLES II. 449 

what has arisen from the following or the avoiding of imita- 
tion^ the dramatic poets of the first period are by far the most 
important, although, with the exception of Shakspeare, they 
may be reproached with great defects and extravagances, and 
although many of the moderns are distinguished for a more 
careful polish. 

There are times when the human mind all at once makes gigan- 
tic strides in an art previously almost unknown, as if during its 
long sleep it had been collecting strength for the effort. The 
age of Elizabeth was in England such an epoch for dramatic 
poetry. This queen, during her long reign, witnessed the first 
infantine attempts of the English theatre, and its most mas- 
terly productions. Shakspeare had a lively feeling of this 
general and rapid development of qualities not before called 
into exercise; in one of his sonnets he calls his age, these time- 
hettering days. The predilection for the theatre was so great, 
that in a period of sixty years, under this and the following 
reign, seventeen play-houses were built or fitted up in London, 
whereas the capital of the present day, with twice the popu- 
lation*, is satisfied with two. No doubt they did not act 
every day, and several of these theatres were very small, and 
probably not much better fitted up than Marionette booths. 
However, they served to call forth the fertility of those writers 
who possessed, or supposed that they possessed, dramatic 
talents ; for every theatre must have had its peculiar reper- 
tory, as the pieces were either not printed at all, or at least 
not till long after their composition, and as a single theatrical 
company was in the exclusive possession of the manuscripts. 
However many of feeble and kiue productions might have 
been called forth, still it was impossible that such an exten- 
sive competition should not have been advantageous. Of all 
the difierent species of poetry the dramatic is the only one 
in which experience is necessary: and the failure of others 
is, for the man of talents, an experiment at their expense. 
Moreover, the exercise of this art requires vigorous deter- 
mination, to which the great artist is often the least inclined, 
as in the execution he finds the greatest difficulty in satisfying 
himself; while, on the other hand, his greatest enjoyment 
consists in embodying in his own mind the beloved creation, 
of his imagination. It is therefore fortunate for him when 
the bolder forwardness of those who, with trifling means, 
* The author might almost have said six times. — Trans. 

2f 



450 SHAKSPEARES PLAY-HOUSE THE GLOBE THEATRE. 

venture on this difficult career stimulates him to put fresh 
hand to the work. Further, it is of importance to the dra- 
matic poet to be connected immediately with the stage, that 
lie may either himself guide it, or learn to accommodate him- 
self to its wants ; and the dramatic poets of that day were, 
for the most part, also players. The theatre still made small 
claims to literature, and it thus escaped the pedantry of scho- 
lastic learning. There were as yet no periodical writings 
which, as the instrument of cabal, could mislead opinion. Of 
jealousies^ indeed, and bickerings among the authors there was 
no want : this, however, was more a source of amusement 
than of displeasure to the public, who decided without pre- 
judice or partiality according to the amount of entertainment. 
The poets and players, as well as the spectators, ]30ssessed in 
general the most essential requisite of success : a true love for 
the business. This was the more unquestionable, as the 
theatrical art was not then surrounded with all those foreign 
ornaments and inyentions of luxury which serve to distract 
the attention and corrupt the sense, but made its appearance 
in the most modest, and we may well say in the most humble 
shape. For the admirers of Shakspeare it must be an object 
of curiosity to know what was the appearance of the theatre 
in which his works were first performed. We have an en- 
graving of the play-house of which he was manager, and 
which, from the symbol of a Hercules supplying the place of 
Atlas, was called the Globe : it is a massive structure desti- 
tute of architectural ornaments, and almost without windows 
in the outward walls. The pit was open to the sky, and the 
acting was by day-light; the scene had no other decoration 
than wrought tapestry, which hung at some distance from the 
walls, and left space for several entrances. In the back-ground 
of the stage there was a second stage raised above it, a sort 
of balcony, which served for various purposes, and according 
to circumstances signified all manner of things. The players 
appeared, excepting on a few rare occasions, in the dress of 
their time, or at most distinguished by higher feathers on their 
hats and roses on their shoes. The chief means of disguise 
were false hair and beards, and occasionally also masks. The 
female parts were played by boys so long as their voice 
allowed it. Two companies of actors in London consisted 
entirely of boys, namely, the choir of the Queen's Chapel and 
that of St, Paul's. Betwixt the acts it was not customary to 



PRESENT APPLIANCE OF THEATRICAL ACCESSORIES. 451 

ihave music, but in the pieces themselves marches, dances, solo 
songs, and the like, were introduced on fitting occasions, and 
trumpet flourishes at the entrance of great personages. In 
the more early time it was usual to represent the action before 
it was spoken, in silent pantomime (dumb show) between each 
lact, allegorical ly or even without any disguise, to give a 
definite direction to the expectation. Shakspeare has ob- 
served this practice in the play in Hamlet. 

By the present lavish appliance of every theatrical acces- 
sory; — of architecture, lighting, music, the illusion of decora- 
tions changing in a moment as if by enchantment, machinery 
and costume ; — by all this, we are now so completely spoiled, 
that this earlier meagreness of stage decoration will in no wise 
satisfy us. Much, however, might be urged in favour of such 
a constitution of the theatre. Where the spectators are not 
allured by any splendid accessories, they will be the more 
i difficult to please in the main thing, namely, the excellence 
: of the dramatic composition, and its embodying by delivery 
' and action. When perfection is not attainable in external 
I decoration, the critic will rather altogether overlook it than 
be disturbed by its deficiencies and tastelessness. And how 
seldom has perfection been here attained ! It is about a 
century and a half since attention began to be paid to the 
observance of costume on the European stage ; what with 
j this view has been accomplished has always appeared excel- 
I lent to the multitude, and yet, to judge from the engravings 
.' which sometimes accompany the printed plays, and from 
every other evidence, it is plain that it was always charac- 
i terized by puerility and mannerism, and that in none the 
endeavours to assume a foreign or antique appearance, could 
\ shake themselves free of the fashions of the time. A sort of 
:' hoop was long considered as an indispensable appendage of a 
hero; the long peruques and fontanges, or topknots, kept 
: their ground in heroical tragedy as long as in real life; after- 
1 wards it would have been considered as barbarous to appear 
■ without powdered and frizzled hair; on this was placed a 
I helmet with variegated feathers ; a tafi'eta scarf fluttered over 
I the gilt paper coat of mail; and the Achilles or Alexander 
I was then completely mounted. We have now at last returned 
i to a purer taste, and in some great theatres the costume is 
! actually observed in a learned and severe style. We owe 
this principally to the antiquarian reform in the arts of 

2f2 



452 SYSTEM OF DECORATION ITS DEFECTS. 

design, and the approximation of the female dress to the 
Grecian; for the actresses were always the most inveterate 
in retaining on the stage those fashions by v/hich they turned 
their charms to account in society. However, even yet there 
are very few players who know how to wear a Grecian 
purple mantle, or a toga, in a natural and becoming manner; 
a,nd who, in moments of passion, do not seem to be unduly 
occupied with holding and tossing about their drapery. 

Our system of decoration was properly invented for the 
opera, to which it is also in reality best adapted. It has 
several unavoidable defects ; others which certainly may be, 
but seldom are avoided. Among the inevitable defects I 
reckon the breaking of the lines in the side scenes from every 
point of view except one ; the disproportion between the size 
of the player when he appears in the background, and the 
objects as diminished in the perspective; the unfavourable 
lighting from below and behind; the contrast between the 
painted and the actual lights and shades ; the impossibility of 
narrowing the stage at pleasure, so that the inside of a palace 
and a hut have the same length and breadth, &c. The errors 
which may be avoided are, want of simplicity and of great 
and reposing masses; overloading the scenery with super- 
fluous and distracting objects, either from the painter being 
desirous of showing his strength in perspective, or not know- 
ing how otherwise to fill up the space; an architecture full of 
mannerism, often altogether unconnected, nay, even at vari- 
ance with possibility, coloured in a motley manner which 
resembles no species of stone in the world. Most scene- 
painters owe their success entirely to the spectator's ignorance 
of the arts of design; I have often seen a whole pit enchanted 
with a decoration from which the eye of skill must have 
turned away with disgust, and in whose place a plain green 
wall would have been infinitely better. A vitiated taste for 
splendour of decoration and magnificence of dress, has ren- 
dered the arrangement of the theatre a complicated and ex- 
pensive business, whence it frequently happens that the main 
requisites, good pieces and good players, are considered as 
secondary matters; but this is an inconvenience which it is 
here unnecessary to mention. 

Although the earlier English stage had properly no decora^ 
tions, we must allow, however, that it was not altogether 
destitute of machinery : without it; it is almost impossible to 



MACHINERY — INIGO JONES. 453 

conceive bow several pieces^ for instance, Macbeth, The Tern- 

'ipest, and others, could ever be representee!, Tbe celebrated 

arcbitect, Inigo Jones, wbo lived in tbe reign of James tbe 

9 First, put in motion very complicated and artificial macbines 

nfor tbe decoration of tbe Mas(][ues of Ben Jonson wbicb were 

acted at court. 

With tbe Spanisb tbeatre at tbe time of its formation, it 
was tbe same as witb tbe Englisb, and wben tbe stage had 
^remained a moment empty, and otber persons came in by 
another entrance, a change of scene was to be supposed 
,'tbougb none was visible; and this circumstance bad tbe most 
Ifavourable influence on tbe form of tbe dramas. Tbe poet 
iwas not obliged to consult tbe scene-painter to know what 
flcould or what could not be represented; nor to calculate 
^whether tbe store of decorations on band were sufficient, or 
snew ones would be requisite : be was not driven to impose 
srestraint on tbe action as to change of times and places, but 
^represented it entirely as it would naturally have taken place*: 
fbe left to the imagination to fill up tbe intervals agreeably to 
cthe speeches, and to conceive all tbe surrounding circum- 
tetances. This call on tbe fancy to supply the deficiencies 
•supposes, indeed, not merely benevolent, but also intelligent 
jspectators of a poetical tone of mind. That is tbe true 
illusion, wben tbe spectators are so completely carried away 
by the impressions of the poetry and tbe acting, that they 
overlook the secondary matters, and forget tbe whole of the 
remaining objects around them. To lie morosely on the 
watch to detect every circumstance that may violate an 
'ipparent reality which, strictly speaking, can never be at- 
bained, is in fact a proof of inertness of imagination and an 
incapacity for mental illusion. This prosaical incredulity 
may be carried so far as to render it utterly impossible for 
':be theatrical artists, wbo in every constitution of the tbeatre 
'equire many indulgences, to amuse tbe spectators by their 
oroductions ; and thus they are, in the end, the enemies of 
i;beir own enjoyment. 

* Capell, an intelligent commentator on Shakspeare, unjustly under- 
•ated by the others, has placed, the advantages in this respect in the clearest 
ight, in an observation on Antony and Cleopatra. It emboldened the 
)oet, when the truth of the action required it, to plan scenes which the 
nost skUful mechanist and scene-painter could scarcely exhibit to the eye ; 
ts for instance, in a Spanish play where sea-fights occur. 



454 ENGLISH PLAYERS. 

We now complain, and with justice, tliat in the acting of 
Shakspeare's pieces the too frequent change of scenes occasions 
an interruption. But the poet is here perfectly blameless. 
It ought to be known that the English plays of that time, as 
well as the Spanish, were printed without any mention of the 
scene and its changes. In Shakspeare the modern editors have 
inserted the scenical directions; and in doing so, they have 
proceeded with the most pedantic accuracy. Whoever has 
the management of the representation of a piece of Shak- 
speare's may, without any hesitation, strike out at once all 
such changes of scene as the following : — " Another room in 
the palace, another street, another part of the field of 
battle," &c. By these means alone, in most cases, the 
change of decorations will be reduced to a very moderate 
number. 

Of the actor's art on a theatre which possessed so little 
external splendour as the old English, those who are in the 
habit of judging of the man from his dress will not be inclined 
to entertain a very favourable idea. I am induced, however, 
from this very circumstance, to draw quite a contrary conclu- 
sion : the want of attractions of an accessory nature renders 
it the more necessary to be careful in essentials. Several 
Englishmen* have given it as their opinion, that the players of 
the first epoch were in all likelihood greatly superior to those 
of the second, at least with the exception of Garrick ; and if 
we had no other proof, the quality of Shakspeare's pieces 
renders this extremely probable. That most of his principal 
characters require a great player is self-evident ; the elevated 
and compressed style of his poetry cannot be understood 
without the most energetic and flexible delivery; besides, 
he often supposes between the speeches a mute action of great 
difficulty, for which he giv^es no directions. A poet who 
labours only and immediately for the stage will not rely for 
his main effect on traits which he must beforehand know will 
be lost in the representation from the unskilfulness of his in- 
terpreters. Shakspeare consequently would have been driven 
to lower the tone of his dramatic art, if he had not possessed 
excellent theatrical coadjutors. Of these, some have de- 
scended by name and fame even to our times. As for Shak- 
speare himself, since we are not fond of allowing any one 

* See a Dialogue prefixed to the 11th volume of Dodsley's Old 
Plays. 



SHAKSPEARE AS AN ACTOR. 455 

iman to possess two great talents in an equal degree, it has 
been assumed on very questionable grounds, tbat he was but 
an indifferent actor*. Hamlet's instructions, however, to the 
players prove at least that he was an excellent judge of acting. 
We know that correctness of conception and judgment are 
not always coupled with the power of execution ; Shakspeare, 
however, possessed a very important and too frequently 
neglected requisite for serious acting, a beautiful and noble 
countenance. Neither is it probable that he could have been 
the manager of the most respectable theatre, had he not himself 
possessed the talent both of acting and guiding the histrionic 
talents of others. Ben Jonson, though a meritorious poet, 
could not even obtain the situation of a player, as he did not 
possess the requisite qualifications. From the passage cited 
from Hamlet, from the burlesque tragedy of the mechanics in 
the Midsummer Night's Dream, and many other passages, it 
is evident that there was then an inundation of bad players, 
who fell into all the aberrations from propriety which offend at 
the present day, but the public, it would appear, knew well 
how to distinguish good and bad acting, and would not be easily 
satisfiedf. 

* No certain account has yet been obtained of any piiacipal part played 
by Shakspeare in Ms own pieces. In Hamlet he played the Ghost; cer- 
tainly a very important part, if we consider that from the failure in it, the 
whole piece runs a risk of appearing ridiculous. A writer of his time says 
in a satirical pamphlet, that the Ghost whined in a pitiful manner ; and it 
has been concluded from this that Shakspeare was a bad player. What 
logic ! On the restoration of the theatre xmder Charles II., a desii-e was 
felt of collecting ti-aditions and information respecting the former period. 
Lowin, the original Hamlet, instructed Betterton as to the proper concep- 
tion of the character. There was still alive a brother of Shakspeare, a 
decrepid old man, who had never had any literary cultivation, and whose 
memoiy was impaired by age. From him they could extract nothing, but 
that he had sometimes visited his brother in town, and once saw him play 
an old man with grey hair and beard. From the above description it was 
concluded that this must have been the faithful servant Adam in As You 
Like It^ also a second-rate part. In most of Shakspeare's pieces we have 
not the slightest knowledge of the manner in which the parts were distri- 
buted. In two of Ben Jonson's pieces we see Shakspeare's name among 
the principal actors. 

t In this respect, the following simUe in Richard the Second is deserv- 
ing of attention : — 

As in a theatre the eyes of men, 
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, 
Are idly bent on him that enters next, 
Thinking his prattle to be tedious, &c. - 



456 ATTEMPTS AT ANTIQUE TRAGEDY. 

A tliorougli critical knowledge of the antiquities of the 
English theatre can only be obtained in England; the old 
editions of the pieces which belong to the earlier period are 
even there extremely rare, and in foreign libraries they are 
never to be met with; the modern collectors have merely 
been able to give a few specimens, and not the whole store. 
It would be highly important to see together all the plays 
which were undoubtedly in existence before Shakspeare 
entered on his career, that we might be able to decide with 
certainty how much of the dramatic art it was possible for 
him to learn from others. The year of the appearance of a 
piece on the stage is generally, however, difficult to ascertain, 
as it was often not printed till long afterwards. If in the 
labours of Shakspeare's contemporaries, even the older who 
continued to write at the same time with himself, we can dis- 
cover resemblances to his style and traces of his art, still it 
will always remain doubtful whether we are to consider these 
as the feeble model, or the imperfect imita^tion. Shakspeare 
appears to have had all the flexibility of mind, and all the 
modesty of Raphael, who, also, without ever being an imi- 
tator and becoming unfaithful to his sublime and tranquil 
genius, applied to his own advantage all the improvements of 
his competitors. 

A few feeble attempts to introduce the form of the antique 
tragedy with choruses, &c.,were at an early period made, and 
praised, without producing any effect. They, like most of the 
attempts of the moderns in this way, serve to prove how 
strange were the spectacles through which the old poets were 
viewed; for it is hardly to be conceived how unlike they are 
to the Greek tragedies, not merely in merit (for that we may 
easily suppose), but even in those external circumstances 
which may be the most easily seized and imitated. Ferrex 
and Porrex, or the Tragedy of Gorhoduc, is most frequently 
cited, which was the production of a nobleman--', in the first 
part of the reign of Elizabeth. Pope bestows high praise on 
this piece, on account of its regularity, and laments that the 
contemporary poets did not follow in the same track; for 
thus he thought a classical theatre might have been formed in 
England. This opinion only proves that Pope (who, however, 
passes for a perfect judge of poetry,) had not even an idea of 
the first elements of Dramatic Art. Nothing can be more 

* Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, conjointly with Norton. — Ed 



THOMAS KYD : HIS SPANISH TRAGEDY. 457 

spiritless and inanimate^ nor more drawling and monotonous 
in the language and the versification, than this Ferrex and 
Porrex; and although the Unities of Place and Time are in 
no way observed, and a number of events are crowded into 
it, yet the scene is wholly destitute of movement: all that 
happens is previously announced by endless consultations, and 
afterwards stated in equally endless narratives. Miista'pliay 
another unsuccessful work of a kindred description, and also 
by a great lord*, is a tedious web of all sorts of political 
subtleties; the choruses in particular are true treatises. 
However, of the innumerable maxims in rhyme, there are 
many which might well have a place in the later pieces of 
Corneille. Kyd, one of the predecessors of Ben Jonson, and 
mentioned by him in terms of praise, handled the Cornelia of 
Garnier. This may be called receiving an imitation of the 
ancients from the third or fourth hand. 

The first serious piece calculated for popular efi'ect is The 
Spanish Tragedy [by Thomas Kyd], so called from the scene 
of the story, and not from its being borrowed from a Spanish 
writer. It kept possession of the stage for a tolerable length 
of time, though it was often the subject of the ridicule and 
the parodies of succeeding poets. It usually happens that the 
public do not easily give up a predilection formed in their 
first warm susceptibility for the impressions of an art yet 
unknown to them, even after they have long been acquainted 
with better, nay, with excellent works. This piece is cer- 
tainly full of puerilities; the author has ventured on the 
picture of violent situations and passions without suspecting 
his own want of power; the catastrophe, more especially, which 
in horror is intended to outstrip everything conceivable, is 
very sillily introduced, and produces merely a ludicrous effect. 
The whole is like the drawings of children, without the ob- 
servance of proportion, and without steadiness of hand. With 
a great deal of bombast, the tone of the dialogue, however, 
has something natural, nay, even familiar, and in the change 
of scenes we perceive a light movement, which in some degree 
will account for the general applause received by this imma- 
ture production. 

Lilly and Marlow deserve to be noticed among the prede- 
cessors of Shakspeare. Lilly was a scholar, and laboured to 
introduce a stilted elegance into English prose, and in the 

* Greviie, Lord Broke. 



458 COMEDIES BEFORE SHAKSPEARE. 

tone of dialogue, with such success, that for a period he was 
the fashionable writer, and the court ladies even formed their 
conversation after the model of his Euphues. His comedy in 
prose, Campaspe, is a warning example of the impossibility of 
ever constructing, out of mere anecdotes and epigrammatic 
sallies, anything like a dramatic whole. The author was a 
learned witling, but in no respect a poet. 

Marlow possessed more real talent, and was in a better 
way. He has handled the history of Edward the Second 
with very little of art, it is true, but with a certain truth and 
simplicity, so that in many scenes he does not fail to produce 
a pathetic effect. His verses are flowing, but without energy: 
how Ben Jonson could come to use the expression '■'■ Marlow' 8 
miglity line^'' is more than I can conceive. Shakspeare could 
neither learn nor derive anything from the luscious manner of 
Lilly: but in Marlow's Edward the Second I certainly imagine 
that I can discover the feebler model of the earliest historical 
pieces of Shakspeare. 

Of the old comedies in Dodsley's collection. The Pinner of 
Wakefielde, and Grim, the Collier of Croydon, seem alone to 
belong to a period before Shakspeare. Both are not without 
merit, in the manner of Marionette pieces; in the first, a 
popular tradition, and in the second, a merry legend, is 
handled with hearty joviality. 

I have dwelt longer on the beginnings of the English 
theatre, than from their internal worth they deserve, because 
it has been affirmed recently in England that Shakspeare 
shows more affinity to the works of his contemporaries now 
sunk in oblivion than people have hitherto been usually 
disposed to believe. We are as little to wonder at certain 
outward resemblances, as at the similarity of the dresses in 
portraits of the same period. In a more limited sense, how- 
ever, we apply the word resemblance exclusively to the rela- 
tion of those features which express the spirit and the mind. 
Moreover, such plays alone can be admitted to be a satisfac- 
tory proof of an assertion of this kind as are ascertained to 
have been written before the commencement of Shakspeare's 
career; for in the works of his younger contemporaries, a 
Decker, Marston, Webster, and others, something of a resem- 
blance may be very naturally accounted for : distinct traces 
of imitation of Shakspeare are sufficiently abundant. Their 
imitation was, however, merely confined to external appear- 



CHAPMAN — HEYWOOD. 459 

ance and separate peculiarities; these writers, without the 
virtues of their model, possess in reality all the faults which 
senseless critics have falsely censured in Shakspeare. 

A sentence somewhat more favourable is merited by Chap- 
man, the translator of Homer, and Thomas Heywood, if we 
may judge of them from the single specimens of their works 
in Dodsley's collection. Chapman has handled the well-known 
story of the Ephesian matron, under the title of The Widoiv's 
Tears, not without comic talent. Heywood's Woman, Killed 
with Kindness is a familiar tragedy : so early may we find 
examples of this species, which has been given out for new. 
It is the story of a wife tenderly beloved by her husband, and 
seduced by a man whom he had loaded with benefits ; her sin 
is discovered, and the severest resolution which her husband 
can bring himself to form is to remove her from him, without 
proclaiming her dishonour; she repents, and grieves to death 
in bitter repentence. A due gradation is not observed in. 
the seduction, but the last scenes are truly agitating- A dis- 
tinct avowal of a moral aim is, perhaps, essential to the fami- 
liar tragedy; or rather, by means of such an aim, a picture of 
human destinies, whether afflicting kings or private families, 
is drawn from the ideal sphere into the prosaic world. But 
when once we admit the title of this subordinate species, we 
shall find that the demands of morality and the dramatic art 
coincide, and that the utmost severity of moral principles 
leads again to poetical elevation. The aspect of that false 
repentance which merely seeks exemption from punishment, 
is painful; repentance, as the pain arising from the irreparable 
forfeiture of innocence, is susceptible of a truly tragic por- 
traiture. Let only the play in question receive a happy con- 
clusion, such as in a well-known piece ""^ has, notwithstanding 
this painful feeling, been so generally applauded in the pre- 
sent day — viz., the reconciliation of the husband and wife, not 
on the death-bed of the repentant sinner, but in sound mind 
and body, and the renewal of the marriage; and it will then 
be found that it has not merely lost its moral, but also its 
poetical impression. 

In other respects, this piece of Heywood is very inartistic, 
and carelessly finished : instead of duly developing the main 
action, the author distracts our attention by a second intrigue, 

* The author alludes to Kotzebue's play of Menschenhass und Reue 
{The Stranger). —Tra^s. 



460 BEN JONSON INGRATITUDE TO SHAKSPEARE. 

whicli can hardly be said to have the slightest connection with 
the other. At this we need hardly he astonished, for Hey- 
wood was both a player and an excessively prolific author. 
Two hundred and twenty pieces were, he says, written 
entirely, or for the greatest part, by himself; and he was so 
careless respecting these productions, which were probably 
thrown off without any great labour, that he had lost the 
manuscript of the most of them, and only twenty-five remained 
for publication through the press. 

All the above authors, and many others beside, whatever 
applause they obtained in their life-time, have been unsuc- 
cessful in transmitting a living memorial of their works to 
posterity. Of Shakspeare's younger contemporaries and com- 
petitors, few have attained this distinction; and of these Ben 
Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, are the 
chief. 

Ben Jonson found in Shakspeare a ready encourager of 
his talents. His first piece, imperfect in many respects, 
Every Man in his Humour, was by Shakspeare's intervention 
brought out on the stage; Seja7ins wa.s even retouched by him, 
and in both he undertook a principal character. This hospit- 
able reception on the part of that great man, who was far 
above every thing like jealousy and petty rivalry, met with a 
very ungrateful return. Jonson assumed a superiority over 
Shakspeare on account of his school learning, the only point 
in which he really had an advantage; he introduced all sorts 
of biting allusions into his pieces and prologues, and repro- 
bated more especially those magical flights of fancy, the 
peculiar heritage of Shakspeare, as contrary to genuine taste. 
In his excuse we must plead, that he was not born under a 
happy star: his pieces were either altogether unsuccessful, 
or, compared with the astonishing popularity of Shakspeare's, 
they obtained but a small share of a23plause; moreover, he 
was incessantly attacked, both on the stage and elsewhere, by 
his rivals, as a disgraceful pedant, who pretended to know 
every thing better than themselves, and with all manner of 
satires : all this rendered him extremely irritable and uneven 
of temper. He possessed in reality a very solid understand- 
ing; he was conscious that in the exercise of his art he dis- 
played zeal and earnestness : that Nature had denied him 
grace, a quality which no labour can acquire, he could not 
indeed suspect. He thought every man may boast of his 



benjonson: his masques. 461 

assiduity, as Lessing says on a similar occasion. After 
several failures on the stage, lie formed tlie resolution to 
declare of his pieces in the outset that they were good, and 
that if they should not please, this could only proceed from 
the stupidity of the multitude. The epigraph on one of his 
unsuccessful pieces with v/hich he committed it to the press, 
is highly amusing : " As it was never acted, but most neg- 
ligently played by some, the King's servants, and more 
squeamishly beheld and censured by others, the King's sub- 
jects." 

Jonson was a critical poet in the good and the bad sense 
of the word. He endeavoured to form an exact estimate 
of what he had on every occasion to perform; hence he suc- 
ceeded best in that species of the drama which makes the 
principal demand on the understanding and with little call 
on the imagination and feeling, — the comedy of character. 
He introduced nothing into his works which critical dissection 
should not be able to extract again, as his confidence in 
it was such, that he conceived it exhausted every thing which 
pleases and charms us in poetry. He was not aware that, in 
the chemical retort of the critic, what is most valuable, the 
volatile living spirit of a poem, evaporates. His pieces are in 
general deficient in soul, in that nameless something which 
never ceases to attract and enchant us, even because it is in- 
definable. In the lyrical pieces, his Masques, we feel the 
want of a certain mental music of imagery and intonation, 
which the most accurate observation of difiicuit measures can- 
not give. He is everywhere deficient in those excellencies 
which, unsought, flow from the poet's pen, and which no 
artist, who purposely hunts for them, can ever hope to find. 
We must not quarrel with him, however, for entertaining a 
high opinion of his own works; since, whatever merits they 
have, he owed like acquired moral properties altogether 
to himself. The production of them was attended with 
labour, and unfortunately it is also a labour to read them. 
They resemble solid and regular edifices, before which, how- 
ever, the clumsy scaffolding still remains, to interrupt and 
prevent us from viewing the architecture with ease, and 
receiving from it a harmonious impression. 

We have of Jonson two tragical attempts, and a number 
of comedies and masques. 

He could have risen to the dignity of the tragic tone, but, 



462 BEN JONSON : HIS SEJANUS AND CATALINE. 

for the pathetic, he had not the smallest turn. As he inces- 
santly preaches np the imitation of the ancients, (and he had, 
Mve cannot deny, a learned acquaintance with their works,) it 
is astonishing to observe how much his two tragedies differ, 
both in substance and form, from the Greek tragedy. From 
this example we see the influence which the prevailing tone 
of an age, and the course already pursued in any art, 
necessarily have upon even the most independent minds. In 
the historical extent given by Jonson to his Sejanus and 
Cataline, unity of time and place were entirely out of the 
question; and both pieces are crowded with a multitude of 
secondary persons, such as are never to be found in a Greek 
tragedy. In Cataline, the prologue is spoken by the spirit of 
Sylla, and it bears a good deal of resemblance to that of 
Tantalus, in the A treus and Thyestes of Seneca; to the end of 
each act an instructive moralizing chorus is appended, without 
being duly introduced or connected with the whole. This is 
the extent of the resemblance to the ancients; in other 
respects, the form of Shakspeare's historical dramas is ad- 
hered to, but without their romantic charm. We cannot with 
certainty say. whether or not Jonson had the Roman pieces 
of Shakspeare before him : it is probable that he had in Cata- 
line at least; but, at all events, he has not learned from him 
the art of being true to history, and yet satisfying the de- 
mands of poetry. In Jonson's hands, the subject continues 
history, without becoming poetry; the political events which 
he has described have more the appearance of a business than 
an action. Cataline and Sejanus are solid dramatic studies 
after Sallust and Cicero, after Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, 
and others; and that is the best which we can say of them. 
In Cataline, which upon the whole is preferable to Sejanus, 
he is also to be blamed for not having blended the dissi- 
milarity of the masses. The first act possesses most elevation, 
though it disgusts us from its want of moderation : we see a 
secret assembly of conspirators, and nature appears to answer 
the furious inspiration of wickedness by dreadful signs. The 
second act, which paints the intrigues and loves of depraved 
women, by means of which the conspiracy was brought to 
light, treads closely on comedy; the last three acts contain a 
history in dialogue, developed with much good sense, but 
little poetical elevation. It is to be lamented that Jonson 
gave only his own text of Sejanus without communicating 



BEN jonson: his comic inventions. 463 

Shakspeare's alterations. We sliould have been curious to 
know the means by which he might have attempted to give 
animation to the monotony of the piece without changing its 
plan, and how far his genius could adapt itself to another's 
conceptions. 

After these attempts, Jonson took his leave of the Tragic 
Muse, and in reality his talents were far better suited to 
Comedy, and that too merely the Comedy of Character. His 
characterization, however, is more marked with serious satire 
than playful ridicule : the later Roman satirists, rather than 
the comic authors, were his models. Nature had denied him 
that light and easy raillery which plays harmlessly round 
every thing, and which seems to be the mere effusion of gaiety, 
but which is so much the more philosophic, as it is not the 
vehicle of any dejBnite doctrine, but merely the expression of a 
general irony. There is more of a spirit of observation than 
of fancy in the comic inventions of Jonson. From this cause 
his pieces are also defective in point of intrigue. He was a 
strong advocate for the purity of the species, was unwilling 
to make use of any romantic motives, and he never had re- 
course to a novel for the subject of his plots. But his contri- 
vances for the entangling and disentangling his plot are often 
improbable and forced, without gaining over the imagination 
by their attractive boldness. Even where he had contrived a 
happy plot, he took so much room for the delineation of the 
characters, that we often lose sight of the intrigue altogether, 
and the action lags with heavy pace. Occasionally he reminds 
us of those over-accurate portrait painters, who, to insure a 
likeness, think they must copy every mark of the small-pox, 
every carbuncle or freckle. Frequently he has been suspected 
of having, in the delineation of particular characters, had real 
persons in his eye, while, at the same time, he has been 
reproached with making his characters mere personifications 
of general ideas; and, however inconsistent with each other 
these reproaches may appear, they are neither of them, how- 
ever, without some foundation. He possessed a methodical 
head; consequently, where he had once conceived a character 
in its leading idea, he followed it out with the utmost rigour ; 
whatever, having no reference to this leading idea, served 
merely to give individual animation, appeared to him in the 
light of a digression. Hence his names are, for the most part, 
expressive even to anunpleasant degree of distinctness; and, 



464 BEN JONSON — HIS CAHICATURES. 

to add to our satiety, lie not infrequently tacks explanatory 
descriptions to the dramatis personge. On the other hand, he 
acted upon the principle, that the comic writer must exhibit 
real life, with a minute and petty accuracy. Generally he 
succeeded in seizing the manners of his own age and nation : 
in itself this was deserving of praise ; but even here he con- 
fined himself too much to external peculiarities, to the singu- 
larities and affectations of the modish tone which were then 
called humours, and which from their nature are as transient 
as dresses. Hence a great part of his comic very soon became 
obsolete, and as early as the re-opening of the theatre under 
Charles II., no actors could be found who were capable of 
doing justice to such caricatures. Local colours like these can 
only be preserved from fading by the most complete season- 
ing with wit. This is what Shakspeare has effected. Com- 
pare, for instance, his Osric, in Hamlet, with Fastidius Brisk, 
in Jonson's Every Man out cf his Humour: both are portrai- 
tures of the insipid affectation of a courtier of the day; but 
Osric, although he speaks his own peculiar language, will re- 
main to the end of time an exact and intelligible image of fop- 
pish folly, whereas Fastidius is merely a portrait in a dress 
no longer in fashion, and nothing more. However, Jonson 
has not always fallen into this error; his Captain Bobadil, 
for example, in Every Man in his Humour, a beggarly and. 
cowardly adventurer, who passes himself off with young and 
simple people for a Hector, is, it is true, far from being 
as amusing and original as Pistol ; but he also, notwithstand- 
ing the change of manners, still remains a model in his way, 
and he has been imitated by English writers of comedy in 
after times. 

In the piece I have just named, the first work of Jonson, 
the action is extremely feeble and insignificant. In the fol- 
lowing, Every Man out of his Humour, he has gone still far- 
ther astray, in seeking the comic effect merely in caricatured 
traits, without any interest of situation : it is a rhapsody of 
ludicrous scenes without connexion and progress. The Bai^- 
tholomew Fair, also, is nothing but a coarse Bambocciate, 
in which no more connexion is to be found than usually 
exists in the hubbub, the noise, the quarrelling, and thefts, 
which attend upon such amusements of the populace. Vul- 
gar delight is too naturally portrayed; the part of the 
Puritan^ however, is deserving of distinction : his casuistical 



4 



BEN JONSON — MERITS AND DEFECTS, 465 

consultation, whether lie ought to eat a sucking-pig according 
to the custom of the fair, and his lecture afterwards against 
puppet-shows as a heathen idolatry, are inimitable, and full 
of the most biting salt of comedy. Ben Jonson did not then 
foresee that, before the lapse of one generation, the Puritans 
would be sufficiently powerful to take a yery severe revenge 
on his art, on account of similar railleries. 

In so far as plot is concerned, the greatest praise is merited 
by Volpone, The Alchemist, and Ejnccene, or the Silent Woman. 
In Volpone Jonson for once has entered into Italian manners, 
without, however, taking an ideal view of them. The leading 
idea is admirable, and for the most part worked out with 
masterly skill. Towards the end, however, the whole turns 
too much on swindling and villany, which necessarily call for 
the interference of criminal justice, and the piece, from the 
punishment of the guilty, has everything but a merry conclu- 
sion. In the A Ichemist, both the deceivers and deceived sup- 
ply a fund of entertainment, only the author enters too deeply 
into the learning of alchemy. Of an unintelligible jargon 
very short specimens at most ought to be given in comedy, 
and it is best that they should also have a secondary significa- 
tion, of which the person who uses the mysterious language 
should not himself be aware j when carried to too great a 
length, the use of them occasions as much weariness as 
the writings themselves which served as a model. In The 
Devil's an Ass the poet has failed to draw due advantage from 
a fanciful invention with which he opens, but which indeed 
was not his own; and our expectation, after being once 
deceived, causes us to remain dissatisfied with other scenes 
however excellently comic. 

Of all Jonson's pieces there is hardly one which, as it stands, 

would please on the stage in the present day, even as most of 

them failed to please in his own time; extracts from them, 

j however, could hardly fail to be successful. In general, 

much might be borrowed from him, and much might be 

: learned both from his merits and defects. His characters are, 

I for the most part, solidly and judiciously drawn; what he 

' most fails in. is the art of setting them off by the contrast of 

situations. He has seldom planned his scenes so successfully 

in this respect as in Every Man in his Humour, where the 

jealous merchant is called off to an important business, when 

his wife is in expectation of a visit of which he is suspicious, 

2g 



466 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

and "when he is anxious to station liis servant as a sentinel, ,i 
without however confiding his secret to him, because, above all 
things he dreads the discovery of his own jealousy. This 
scene is a master-piece, and if Jonson had always so com- 
posed, we must have been obliged to rank him among the 
first of comic writers. a 

Merely lest we should be charged with an omission do we j 
mention The Masques: allegorical, occasional pieces, chiefly 
designed for court festivals, and decorated with machinery, i 
masked dresses, dancing, and singing. This secondary species 
died again nearly with Jonson himself; the only subsequent 
production in this way of any fame is the Comus of Milton 
When allegory is confined to mere personification, it must in- 
fallibly turn out very frigid in a play ; the action itself must 
be allegorical, and in this respect there are many ingenious 
inventions, but the Spanish poets have almost alone furnished 
us with successful examples of it. The peculiarity of Jonson's 
Masques most deserving of remark seems to me to be the anti- 
masque, as they are called, which the poet himself sometimes 
attaches to his own invention, and generally allows to precede 
the serious act. As the ideal flatteries, for whose sake the \ 
gods have been brought down from Olympus, are but too apt ; 
to fall into mawkishness, this antidote on such occasions is cer- f 
tainly deserving of commendation. \ 

Ben Jonson, who in all his pieces took a mechanical view ! 
of art, bore a farther resemblance to the master of a handi- j 
craft in taking an apprentice. He had a servant of the name f 
of Broome, who formed himself as a theatrical writer from the ' 
conversation and instructions of his master, and brought come- I 
dies on the stage with applause. t 

Beaumont and Fletcher are always named together, as if ' 
they had been two inseparable poets, whose works were all 
planned and executed in common. This idea, however, is not 
altogether correct. We know, indeed, but little of the cir- ; 
cumstances of their lives : this much however is known, that \ 
Beaumont died very young; and that Fletcher survived his ' 
younger friend ten years, and was so unremittingly active in 
his career as a dramatic poet, that several of his plays were 
first brought on the stage after his death, and some which he 
left unfinished were completed by another hand. The pieces 
collected under both names amount to upwards of fifty ; and i 
of this number it is probable that the half must be considered 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 46T 

as the work of Fletcher alone. Beaumont and Fletcher's 
j works did not make their appearance until a short time after 
, the death of the latter; the publishers have not given them- 
selves the trouble to distinguish critically the share which 
; belonged to each, and still less to afibrd us any information 
respecting the diversity of their talents. Some of their con- 
, temporaries have attributed boldness of imagination to Flet- 
I cher, and a mature judgment to his friend : the former, accord- 
ing to their opinion, was the inventive genius ; the latter, the 
J directing and moderating critic. But this account rests on 
J no foundation. It is now impossible to distinguish with cer- 
tainty the hand of each ; nor would the knowledge repay the 
, labour. All the pieces ascribed to them, whether they proceed 
i from one alone or from both, are composed in the same spirit 
; and in the same manner. Hence it is probable that it was 
I not so much the need of supplying the deficiencies of each 
; other, as the great resemblance of their way of thinking, which 
induced them to continue so long and so inseparably united. 

Beaumont and Fletcher began their career in the lifetime 
of Shakspeare : Beaumont even died before him, and Fletcher 
only survived him nine years. From some allusions in the 
way of parody, we may conclude that they entertained no 
very extravagant admiration of their great predecessor; from 
whom, nevertheless, they both learned much, and unquestion- 
ably borrowed many of their thoughts. In the whole form of 
their plays they followed his example, regardless of the differ- 
ent principles of Ben Jonson and of the imitation of the 
ancients. Like him they drew from novels and romances; 
they combined pathetic and burlesque scenes in the same play, 
and, by the concatenation of the incidents, endeavoured to 
excite the impression of the extraordinary and the wonderful. 
A wish to surpass Shakspeare in this species is often evident 
enough ; contemporary eulogists, indeed, have no hesitation 
in ranking Shakspeare far belovf them, and assert that the 
English stage was first brought to perfection by Beaumont 
and Fletcher. And, in reality, Shakspeare's fame was in 
some degree eclipsed by them in the generation which imme- 
diately succeeded, and in the time of Charles II. they still 
enjoyed greater popularity: the progress of time, however, 
has restored all three to their due places. As on the stage 
the highest excellence will wear out by frequent repetition, 
and novelty always possesses a great charm, the dramatic art 

2g2 



468 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

is, consequently, much influenced by fashion ; it is more than 
other branches of literature and the fine arts exposed to the 
danger of passing rapidly from a grand and simple style to 
dazzling and superficial mannerism. 

Beaumont and Fletcher were in fact men of the most dis- 
tinguished talents ; they scarcely wanted anything more than 
a profounder seriousness of mind, and that artistic sagacity 
which everywhere observes a due measure, to rank beside the 
greatest dramatic poets of all nations. They possessed extra- 
ordinary fecundity and flexibility of mind, and a facility 
w^hich however too often degenerated into carelessness. The 
highest perfection they have hardly ever attained; and I 
should have little hesitation in affirnstng that they had not 
even an idea of it: however, on several occasions they have 
approached quite close to it. And why was it denied them 
to take this last step? Because with them poetry was not an 
inward devotion of the feeling and imagination, but a means 
to obtain brilliant results. Their first object was efiect, which 
the great artist can hardly fail of attaining if he is determined 
above all things to satisfy himself. They were not like the 
most of their predecessors, players*, but they lived in the 
neighbourhood of the theatre, were in constant intercourse 
with it, and possessed a perfect understanding of theatrical 
matters. They were also thoroughly acquainted with their 
contemporaries ;^but they found it more convenient to lower 
themselves to the taste of the public than to follow the exam- 
ple of Shakspeare, who elevated the public to himself. They 
lived in a vigorous age, which more willingly pardoned ex- 
travagancies of every description than feeblenesss and fri- 
gidity. They therefore never allowed themselves to be re- 
strained by poetical or moral considerations; and in this 
confidence they found their account : they resemble in some 
measure somnambulists, who with closed eyes pass safely 
through the greatest dangers. Even when they undertake 
what is most depraved they handle it with a certain felicity. 
In the commencement of a degeneracy in the dramatic art, 
the spectators first lose the capability of judging of a play as 
a whole; hence Beaumont and Fletcher bestow very little 

* In tlie privilege granted by James I. to the royal players, a Laurence 
Fletcher is named along with Shakspeare as manager of the company. 
The poet's name was John Fletcher. Perhaps the former might be liis 
brother or near relation. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 469 

attention on harmony of composition and tlie observance of 
due proportion between all the different parts. They not 
unfrequently lose sight of a happily framed plot, and appear 
almost to forget it ; they bring something else forward equally 
capable of affording pleasure and entertainment, but without 
preparation, and in the particular place where it occurs with- 
out propriety. They always excite curiosity, frequently 
compassion — they hurry us along with them; they suceeed 
better, however, in exciting than in gratifying our expecta- 
tion. So long as we are reading them we feel ourselves 
keenly interested ; but they leave very few imperishable im- 
pressions behind. They are least successful in their tragic 
attempts, because their feeling is not sufficiently drawn from 
the depths of human nature, and because they bestowed too 
little attention on the general consideration of human des- 
tinies: they succeed much better in Comedy, and in those 
serious and pathetic pictures which occupy a middle place 
betwixt Comedy and Tragedy. Their characters are often 
arbitrarily drawn, and, when it suits the momentary wants 
of the poet, become even untrue to themselves; in external 
matters they are tolerably in keeping. Beaumont and Flet- 
cher employ the whole strength of their talents in pictures 
of passion; but they enter little into the secret history of 
the heart ; they pass over the first emotions and the gradual 
heightening of a feeling ; they seize it, as it were, in its highest 
maturity, and then develope its symptoms with the most 
overpowering illusion, though with an exaggerated strength 
and fulness. But though its expression does not always pos- 
sess the strictest truth, nevertheless it still appears natural; 
every thing has free motion; nothing is laboriously con- 
strained or far-fetched, however striking it may sometimes 
appear. In their dialogue they have completely succeeded 
in uniting the familiar tone of real conversation and the 
appearance of momentary suggestion with poetical elevation. 
They even run into that popular affectation of the natural 
which has ensured such great success to some dramatic poets 
of our own time ; but as the latter sought it in the absence of 
all elevation of fancy, they could not help falling into insi- 
pidity. Beaumont and Fletcher generally couple nature v/ith 
fancy ; they succeed in giving an extraordinary appearance to 
what is common, and thus preserve a certain fallacious image 
of the ideal. The morality of these writers is ambiguous. 
Not that they failed in strong colours to contrast greatness of 



470 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

soul and goodness with baseness and wickedness, or did not 
usually conclude witli tlie disgrace and punishment of the 
latter, but an ostentatious generosity is often favourably ex- 
hibited in lieu of duty and justice. Every thing good and 
excellent in their pictures arises more from transient ebullition 
than fixed principle; they seem to place the virtues in the 
blood ; and close beside them impulses of merely a selfish and 
instinctive nature hold up their heads, as if they were of 
nobler origin. There is an incurable vulgar side of human 
nature which, when be cannot help but show it, the poet 
should never handle without a certain bashfulness ; but in- 
stead of this Beaumont and Fletcher throw no A^eil whatever 
over nature. They express every thing bluntly in words; 
they make the spectator the unwilling confidant of all that 
more noble minds endeavour even to hide from themselves. 
The indecencies in which these poets indulged themselves go 
beyond conception. Licentiousness of language is the least 
evil ; many scenes, nay, even whole plots, are so contrived 
that the very idea, not to mention the beholding of them, is a 
gross insult to modesty. Aristophanes is a bold mouth-piece 
of sensuality; but like the Grecian statuaries in the figures 
of satyi's, &c., he banishes them into the animal kingdom to 
which they wholly belong; and judging him by the morality 
of his times, he is much less offensive. But Beaumont and 
Fletcher hold up to view the impure and nauseous colours of 
vice in quite a difierent sphere; their compositions resemble 
the sheet, in the vision of the Apostle, full of pure and 
impure animals. This was the universal tendency of the 
dramatic poets under James and Charles I. They seem as if 
they purposely wished to justify the assertion of the Puritans, 
that theatres were so many schools of seduction and chapels 
of the Devil. 

To those who merely read for amusement and general cul- 
tivation, we can only recommend the works of Beaumont and 
Fletcher with some limitation*. For the practical artist, 
however, and the critical judge of dramatic poetry, an infinite 
deal may be learned from them ; as well from their merits as 
their extravagancies. A minute dissection of one of their 
works, for which we have not here the necessary space, would 

* Hence I cannot approve of the undertaking, whicli has been recently 
commenced, of translating them into German. They are not at all 
adapted for our great pubhc, and whoever makes a particular study of dra- 
matic poetry will have little difficulty in finding his way to the originals. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 471 

serve to place this in the clearest light With regard to 
representation, these pieces had, in their day, this advantage, 
that they did not require such great actors to fill the principal 
characters as Shakspeare's plays did. In order to bring them 
on the stage in our days, it would be necessary to re-cast most 
of them; which might *be done with some of them by omit- 
ting, moderating, and purging various passages*. 

The Two Noble Kinsmen is deserving of more particular 
mention, as it is the joint production of Shakspeare and Flet- 
cher. I see no ground for calling this in question ; the piece, 
it is true, did not make its appearance till after the death of 
both ; but what could be the motive with the editor or printer 
for any deception, as Fletcher's name was at the time in as 
great, at least, if not greater celebrity than Shakspeare's? 
Were it the sole production of Fletcher, it would, undoubtedly, 
have to be ranked as the best of his serious and heroic pieces. 
However, it would be unfair to a writer of talent to take from 
him a work simply because it seems too good for him. Might 
not Fletcher, who in his thoughts and images not unfrequently 
shows an affinity to Shakspeare, have for once had the good 
fortune to approach closer to him than usual? It would still be 
more dangerous to rest on the similarity of separate passages 
to others in Shakspeare. This might rather arise from imita- 
tion. I rely therefore entirely on the historical statement, 
which, probably, originated in a, tradition of the players. 
There are connoisseurs, who, in the pictures of Raphael, 
(which, as is well know, were not always wholly executed by 
himself,) take upon them to determine what parts were painted 
by Francesco Penni, or Giulio Romano, or some other scholar. 
I wish them success with the nicety of their discrimination; 
they are at least secure from contradiction, as we have no cer- 
tain information on the subject. I would only remind these 
connoisseurs, that Giulio Romano was himself deceived by a 
copy from Raphael of Andrea del Sarto's, and that, too, with re- 
gard to a figure which he had himself assisted in painting. The 
case in point is, however, a much more complicated problem in 
criticism. The design of Raphael's figures was at least his 
own, and the execution only was distributed in part among his 

* So far as I know only one play has yet been brought on the German 
theatre, namely, Rule a Wife and have a Wife, re-written by Schroder 
under the title of Stille Wasser sind tief (Still Waters run deep) which^ 
when well acted, has always been uncommonly well received. 



472 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

scholars. But to find out how mucli of The Two Noble Kinsmen 
may belong to Shakspeare, we must not only be able to tell 
the difi'erence of hands in the execution, but also to determine 
the influence of Shakspeare on the plan of the whole. When, 
however, he once joined another j)oet in the production of a 
work, he must also have accommodated himself, in a certain 
degree, to his views, and renounced the prerogative of unfold- 
ing his inmost peculiarity. Amidst so many grounds for 
doubting, if I might be allowed to hazard an opinion, I should 
say, that T think I can perceive the mind of Shakspeare in a- 
certain ideal purity, which distinguishes this piece from all 
others of Fletcher's, and in the conscientious fidelity with 
which the story adheres to that of Chaucer's Palamon and 
Arcite. In the style Shakspeare's hand is at first discover- 
able in a brevity and fulness of thought bordering on obscu- 
rity; in the colour of the expression, almost all the poets of 
that time bear a strong resemblance to each other. The first 
acts are most carefully laboured; afterwards the piece is drawn 
out to too great a length and in an epic manner; the dramatic: 
law of quickening the action towards the conclusion, is not 
sufficiently observed. The part of the jailor's daughter, whose 
insanity is artlessly conducted in j)ure monologues, is cer- 
tainly not Shakspeare's; for, in that case, we must suppose 
him to have had an intention of arrogantly imitating his own 
Ophelia. 

Moreover, it was then a very general custom for two or 
even three poets to join together in the production of one play. 
Besides the constant example of Beaumont and Fletcher, we 
have many others. The consultations, respecting the plan, 
were generally held at merry meetings in taverns. Upon one 
of these occasions it happened that one in a poetical intoxica- 
tion calling out, " I will undertake to kill the king ! " was im- 
mediately taken into custody as a traitor, till the misunder- 
standing was cleared up. This mode of composing may 
answer very well in the lighter species of the drama, which 
require to be animated by social Avit. With regard to thea- 
trical efi'ect, four eyes may, in general, see better than two, 
and mutual objections may be of use in finding out the most 
suitable means. But the highest poetical inspiration is much 
more eremitical than communicative; for it always seeks to 
express something which sets language at defiance, which, 
therefore, can only be weakened and dissipated by detached 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 473 

words, and can only be attained by tbe common impression of 
the complete work, whose idea is hovering before it. 

The Knight of the Burning Pestle, of Beaumont and Flet- 
cher, is an incomparable work and singular in its kind. It 
is a parody of the chivalry romances; the thought is bor- 
rowed from Don Quixote, but the imitation is handled with 
freedom, and so particularly applied to Spenser's Fairy QueeUy 
that it may pass for a second invention. But the peculiarly 
ingenious novelty of the piece consists in the combination 
of the irony of a chimerical abuse of poetry with another 
irony exactly the contrary, of the incapacity to comprehend 
any fable, and the dramatic form more particularly. A 
grocer and his wife come as spectators to the theatre ; they 
are discontented with the piece which has just been announced; 
they demand a play in honour of the corporation, and Ealph, 
their apprentice, is to act a principal part in it. Their 
humour is complied with; but still they are not satisfied, 
make their remarks on every thing, and incessantly address 
themselves to the players. Ben Jonsou had already exhibited 
imaginary spectators, but they were either benevolent ex- 
pounders or 'awkward censurers of the poet's views : con- 
sequently, they always conducted his, the poet's, own cause. 
But the grocer and his wife represent a whole genus, namely, 
those unpoetical spectators, who are destitute of a feeling for 
art. The illusion with them becomes a passive error; the 
subject represented has on them all the effect of reality, 
they accordingly resign themselves to the impression of each 
moment, and take part for or against the persons of the 
drama. On the other hand, they show themselves insensible 
to all genuine illusion, that is, of entering vividly into the 
spirit of the fable : for them Ralph, however heroically and 
chivalrously he may conduct himself, is always Ralph their 
apprentice; and in the whim of the moment they take upon, 
them to demand scenes which are quite inconsistent with the 
plan of the piece that has been commenced. In short, the 
views and demands with which poets are often oppressed by 
a prosaical public are very cleverly and amusingly personified 
in these caricatures of spectators. 

The Faithful Shepherdess, a pastoral, is highly extolled by 
some English critics, as it is without doubt finished with 
great care, in rhymed, and partly, in lyrical verses. Fletcher 
wished also to be classical for once, and did violence to his 



474 MASSINGER SHIRLEY. 

natural talent. Perhaps lie liad tlie intention of surpassing 
Siiakspeare's Midsummer JSfigMs Dream; but the composition 
which he has ushered into the world is as heavy as that of 
the other was easy and aerial. The piece is overcharged 
with mythology and rural painting, is untheatrical, and so far 
from pourtraying the genuine ideality of a pastoral world, it 
even contains the greatest vulgarities. We might rather call 
it an immodest eulogy of chastity. I am willing to hope that 
Fletcher was unacquainted with the Pastor Ficlo of Guarini, 
for otherwise his failure would admit of less justification. 

We are in want of space to speak in detail of the remain- 
ing works of Beaumont and Fletcher, although they might be 
made the subject of many instructive observations. On the 
whole, we may say of these writers that they have built a 
splendid palace, but merely in the suburbs of poetry, while 
Shakspeare has his royal residence in the very centre point of 
the capital. 

The fame of Massinger has been lately revived by an 
edition of his works. Some literary men wish to rank him 
above Beaumont and Fletcher, as if he had approached more 
closely to the excellence of Shakspeare. I cannot see it. He 
appears to me to bear the greatest resemblance to Beaumont 
and Fletcher in the plan of the pieces, in the tone of manners, 
and even in the language and negligences of versification. 
I would not undertake to decide, from internal symptoms, 
whether a play belonged to IMassinger, or Beaumont and 
Fletcher. This applies also to the other contemporaries ; for 
instance, to Shirley, of whose pieces two are stated to have 
crept into the works ascribed to the two last-named poets. 
There was (as already said) at this time in England a school 
of dramatic art, a school of which Shakspeare was the in- 
visible and too often unacknowledged head; for Ben Jonson 
remained almost without successors. It is a characteristic of 
what is called manner in art to efiace the features of personal 
originality, and to make the productions of various artists 
bear a resemblance to each other ; and from manner no dra- 
m^atic poet of this age, who succeeded Shakspeare, can be 
pronounced altogether free. When, however, we compare 
their works with those of the succeeding age, we perceive 
between them something about the same relation as between 
the paintings of the school of Michel Angelo and those of the 
last half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth 



THE PURITANS — THE STAGE CLOSED. 475 

century. Botli are tainted witli manner; but tlie manner of 
the former bears the trace of a sublime origin in the first 
ages; in the latter, all is little, afiected, empty, and super- 
ficial. I repeat it : in a general history of the dramatic art, 
the first period of the English theatre is the only one of im- 
portance. The plays of the least known writers of that time, 
(I venture to aifirm this, though I am far from being ac- 
quainted with all of them) are more instructive for theory, 
and more remarkable, than the most celebrated of all the 
succeeding times. 



LECTURE XXVIII. 

Closing- of the Stage by the Puritans — Revival of the Stage under Charles 
the Second — Depravity of Taste and Morals — Dryden, Otway, and 
others — Characterization of the Comic Poets from Wycherley and Con- 
greye to the middle of the eighteenth century — Tragedies of the same 
Period — Rowe — Addison's Cato — Later Pieces — Familiar Tragedy: 
Lillo — Garrick — Latest state. 

In this condition nearly the theatre remained under the reign 
of Charles I. down to the year 1647, when the invectives of 
the Puritans (who had long murmured at the theatre, and at 
last thundered loudly against it,) were changed into laws. 
To act, or even to be a spectator of plays was prohibited under 
a severe penalty. A civil war followed, and the extraordi- 
nary circumstance here happened, that the players, (who, in 
general, do not concern themselves much about forms of 
government, and whose whole care is usually devoted to the 
peaceable entertainment of their follow-citizens,) compelled 
by want, joined that political party the interests of which 
were intimately connected with their own existence. Almost 
all of them entered the army of the King, many perished for 
the good cause, the survivors returned to London and con- 
tinued to exercise their art in secret. Out of the ruins of all 
the former companies of actors, one alone was formed, which 
occasionally, though with very great caution, gave repre- 
sentations at the country seats of the great, in the vicinity of 
London. For among the other singularities to which the 
violence of those times gave rise, it was considered a proof of 
attachment to the old constitution to be fond of plays, and 



476 CHARLES II. REVIVES THE STAGE. 

to reward and harbour those who acted them in private 
houses. 

Fortunately the Puritans did not so well understand the 
importance of a censorship as the Governments of our day, 
or the yet unprinted dramatic productions of the preceding 
age could not have issued from the press, by which means many 
of them would have been irrecoverably lost. These gloomy 
fanatics were such enemies of all that was beautiful, that 
they not only persecuted every liberal mental entertainment, 
calculated in any manner to adorn life, and more especially 
the drama, as being a public worship of Baal, but they even 
shut their ears to church music, as a demoniacal howling. If 
their ascendency had been maintained much longer, England 
must infallibly have been plunged in an irremediable bar- 
barity. The oppression of the drama continued down to 
the year 1660, when the free exercise of all arts returned with 
Charles II. 

The influence which the government of this monarch had 
on the manners and spirit of the time, and the natural re- 
action against the principles previously dominant, are suffi- 
ciently well known. As the Puritans had brought republican 
principles and religious zeal into universal odium, so this 
light-minded monarch seemed expressly born to sport away 
all respect for the kingly dignity. England was inundated 
with foreign follies and vices in his train. The court set the 
fashion of the most undisguised immorality, and its example 
was the more contagious, the more people imagined that 
they could only show their zeal for the new order of things by 
an extravagant way of thinking a.nd living. The fanaticism 
of the republicans had been associated with strictness of 
manners, nothing therefore could be more easy and agreeable 
than to obtain the character of royalists, by the extravagant 
indulgence of all lawful and unlawful pleasures. Nowhere 
was the age of Louis XIV. imitated with greater depravity. 
But the prevailing gallantry of the court of France had 
its reserve and a certain delicacy of feeling; they sinned (if I 
may so speak) with some degree of dignity, and no man 
ventured to attack what was honourable, however at variance 
with it his own actions might be. The English played a 
part which was altogether unnatural to them: they gave 
themselves up heavily to levity; they everywhere confounded 
the coarsest licentiousness with free mental vivacity, and did 



SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT DRYDEN. 477 

not perceive that the kind of grace which is still compatible 
with depravity, disappears with the last veil which it throws 
off. 

We can easily conceive the turn which, under such aus- 
pices, the new formation of taste must have taken. There 
existed no real knowledge of the fine arts, which were favoured 
merely like other foreign fashions and inventions of luxury. 
The age neither felt a true want of poetry, nor had any 
relish for it : in it they merely wished for a light and brilliant 
entertainment. The theatre, which in its former simplicity 
had^ attracted the spectators solely by the excellence of the 
dramatic works and the skill of the actors, was now furnished 
out with all the appliances with which we are at this day fa- 
miliar; but what it gained in external decoration, it lost in 
internal worth. 

To Sir William Davenant, the English theatre, on its re- 
vival after the interruption which we have so often mentioned, 
owes its new institution, if this term may be here used. He 
introduced the Italian system of decoration, the costume, as it 
was then well or ill understood, the opera music, and in 
general the use of the orchestra. For this undertaking 
Charles II. had furnished him with extensive privileges. 
Davenant was a sort of adventurer and wit; in every way 
worthy of the royal favour; to enjoy which, dignity of 
character was never a necessary requisite. He set himself 
to work in every way that a rich theatrical repertory may 
render necessary; he made alterations of old pieces, and also 
wrote himself plays, operas, prologues, &c. But of all his 
writings nothing has escaped a merited oblivion. 

Dryden soon became and long remained the hero of the stage. 
This man, from his influence in fixing the laws of versification 
and poetical language, especially in rhyme, has acquired a 
reputation altogether disproportionate to his true merit. We 
shall not here inquire whether his translations of the Latin 
poets are not manneristical paraphrases, whether his political 
allegories (now that party interest is dead) can be read without 
the greatest weariness; but confine ourselves to his plays, 
which considered relatively to his great reputation, are incre- 
dibly bad, Dryden had a gift of flowing and easy versifica- 
tion; the knowledge which he possessed was considerable, but 
undigested; and all this was coupled with the talent of giving 
a certain appearance of novelty to what however was borrowed 



478 DRYDEN — HEROIC DRAMA. 

from all quarters; his serviceable muse was the resource of 
an irregular life. He had besides au immeasurable vanity; 
he frequently disguises it under humble prologues; on other 
occasions he speaks out boldly and confidently, avowing his 
opinion that he has done better than Shakspeare, Fletcher, 
and Jonson (whom he places nearly on the same level); all 
the merit of this he is, however, willing to ascribe to the 
refinement and advances of the age. The age indeed ! as if 
that of Elizabeth compared with the one in which Dryden 
lived, were not in every respect " Hyperion to a Satyr !" 
Dryden played also the part of the critic : he furnished his 
pieces richly with prefaces and treatises on dramatic poetry, 
in which he chatters most confusedly about the genius of Shak- 
speare and Fletcher, and about the entirely opposite example 
of Corneille; of the original boldness of the British stage, 
and of the rules of Aristotle and Horace. — He imagined that 
lie had invented a new species, namely the Heroic Drama; as 
if Tragedy had not from its very nature been always heroical ! 
If we are, however, to seek for a heroic drama which is not 
peculiarly tragic, we shall find it among the Spaniards, who 
had long possessed it in the greatest perfection. From the 
uncommon facility of rhjming which Dry den possessed, it 
cost him little labour to compose the most of his serious 
pieces entirely in rhyme. With the English, the rhymed 
verse of ten syllables supplies the place of the Alexandrine; 
it has more freedom in its pauses, but on the other hand 
it wants the alternation of male and female rhymes; it pro- 
ceeds in pairs exactly like the French Alexandrine, and in 
point of syllabic measure it is still more uniformly symme- 
trical. It therefore unavoidably communicates a great stifihess 
to the dialogue. The manner of the older English poets 
before them, who generally used blank verse, and only occa- 
sionally introduced rhymes, was infinitely preferable. But, 
since then, on the other hand, rhyme has come to be too 
exclusively rejected. 

Dryden's plans are improbable, even to silliness; the inci- 
dents are all thrown out without forethought; the most won- 
derful theatrical strokes fall incessantly from the clouds. He 
cannot be said to have drawn a single character; for there is 
.not a spark of nature in his dramatic personages. Passions, 
criminal and magnanimous sentiments, flow with indifferent 
levity from their lips, without oyer having dwelt in the heart; 



OTWAY LEE WYCHERLEY — CONGREVE . 479 

tteir ctief delight is in heroical boasting. The tone of 
expression is by turns flat or madly bombastical; not unfre- 
quently botli at the same time: in short, this poet resembles a 
man who walks upon stilts in a morass. His wit is displayed 
in far-fetched sophistries; his imagination in long-spun 
similies, awkwardly introduced. All these faults have been 
ridiculed by the Duke of Buckingham in his comedy of The 
Mehearsal. Dryden was meant under the name of Bayes, 
though some features are taken from Davenant and other con- 
temporary writers. The vehicle of this critical satire might 
have been more artificial and diversified; the matter, however 
is admirable, and the separate parodies are very amusing and 
ingenious. The taste for this depraved manner was, however, 
too prevalent to be restrained by the efi'orts of so witty a 
critic, who was at the same time a grandee of the kingdom. 

Otway and Lee were younger competitors of Dryden in 
tragedy. Otway lived in poverty, and died young; under 
more favourable circumstances greater things perhaps would 
have been done by him. His first pieces in rhyme are imita- 
tations of Dryden's manner; he also imitated the Berenice of 
Racine. Two of his pieces in blank verse have kept posses- 
sion of the stage — TJie Orphan and Venice Preserved. These 
tragedies are far from being good; but there is matter in 
them, especially in the last; and amidst much empty declama- 
tion there are some truly pathetic passages. How little 
Otway understood the true rules of composition may be in- 
ferred from this, that he has taken the half of the scenes of 
his Caius Marius verbally, or with disfiguring changes, from 
the Borneo and Juliet of Shakspeare. Nothing more incon- 
gruous can well be conceived, than such an episode in Roman 
manners, and in a historical drama. This impudent plagiarism 
is in no manner justified by his confessing it. 

Dryden altered pieces of Shakspeare; for then, and even, 
long afterwards, every person thought himself qualified for 
this task. He also wrote comedies; but Wycherley and 
Congreve were the first to acquire a name in this species of 
composition. The mixed romantic drama was now laid 
entirely aside; all was either tragedy or comedy. The history 
of each of these species will therefore admit of being separately 
handled — if, indeed, that can be correctly said to have a history 
where we ca^n perceive no progressive development, but mere 
standing still; or eyen retrograding, and an inconstant flue- 



480 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS. 

tuation ia all directions. However, the English, under 
Charles II. and Queen Anne, and down to the middle of the 
eighteenth century, had a series of comic writers, who may 
be all considered as belonging to one common class; for the 
only considerable diversity among them arises merely from 
an external circumstance, the varying tone of manners. 

I have elsewhere in these Lectures shown that elegance of 
form is of the greatest importance in Comedy, as from the 
want of care in this respect it is apt to degenerate into a mere 
prosaical imitation of reality, and thereby to forfeit its pre- 
tensions to rank as either poetry or art. It is exactly, how- 
ever, in the form, that the English comedies are most negli- 
gent. In the first place, they are written entirely in prose. 
It has been well remarked by an English critic, that the 
banishment of verse from Comedy had even a prejudicial 
influence on versification in Tragedy. The older dramatists 
could elevate or lower the tone of their Iambics at pleasure; 
from the exclusion of this verse from familiar dialogue, it has 
become more pompous and inflexible. Shakspeare's comic 
scenes, it is true, are also written, for the most part, in prose; 
but in the Mixed Comedy, which has a serious, wonderful, or 
pathetic side, the prose, mixed with the elevated language of 
verse, serves to mark the contrast between vulgar and ideal 
sentiments; it is a positive means of exhibition. Continued 
prose in Comedy is nothing but the natural language, on 
which the poet has failed to employ his skill to refine and 
smoothe it down, while apparently he seems the more careful 
to give an accurate imitation of it: it is that prose which 
Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme has been speaking his whole 
lifetime without suspecting it. 

Moreover, the English comic poets tie themselves down too 
little to the unity of place. I have on various occasions 
declared that I consider change of scene even a requisite, 
whenever a drama is to possess historical extent or the magic 
of romance. But in the comedy of common life the case is 
somewhat altogether difierent. I am convinced that it would 
almost always have had a beneficial influence on the conduct 
of the action in the English plays, if their authors had, in this 
respect, subjected themselves to stricter laws. 

The lively trickery of the Italian masks has always found 
a more unfavourable reception in England than in France. 
The fool or clown in Shakspeare's comedies is far more of an 



THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS, 481 

ironical humorist than a mimical buffoon. Intrigue in real life 
is foreign to the Northern nations^ both from the virtues and 
the defects of their character ; they have too much openness 
of disposition, and too little acuteness and nicety of understand- 
ing. It is remarkable that, with greater violence of passion, 
the Southern nations possess, nevertheless, in a much higher 
degree the talent of dissembling. In the North, life is wholly 
founded on mutual confidence. Hence, in the drama, the 
spectators, from being less practised in intrigue, are less 
inclined to be delighted with concealment of views and their 
success by bold artifice, and with the presence of mind which, 
in unexpected events of an untoward nature, readily extricates 
its possessor from embarrassment. However, there may be 
an intrigue in Comedy, in the dramatic sense, though none of 
the persons carry on what is properly called intrigue. Still 
it is in the entangling and disentangling their plots that the 
English comic writers are least deserving of praise. Their 
plans are defective in unity. From this reproach I have, I 
conceive, sufficiently exculpated Shakspeare; it is rather 
merited by many of Fletcher's pieces. When, indeed, the 
imagination has a share in the composition, then it is far from 
being as necessary that all should be accurately connected 
together by cause and effect, as when the whole is framed and 
held together exclusively by the understanding. The exist- 
ence of a double or even triple intrigue in many modem 
English comedies has been acknowledged even by English 
critics themselves-^. The inventions to v/hicli they have 
recourse are often everything but probable, without charming 
us by their happy novelty; they are chiefly deficient, how- 
ever, in perspicuity and easy development. Most English 
comedies are much too long. The authors overload their 
composition with characters : and we can see no reason why 
they should not have divided them into several pieces. It is 
as if we were to compel to travel in the same stage-coach 
a greater number of persons, all strangers to each other, 
than there is properly room for; the journey becomes more 
inconvenient, and the entertainment not a whit more lively. 

* Among others, by tlie anonymous author of a clever letter to Garrick, 
prefixed to Coxeter's edition of Massing er' s Works, who says — " What with 
their plots, and double plots, and counter-plots, and under-plots, the 
mind is as much perplexed to piece out the story as to put together the 
disjointed parts of an ancient di'ama." 

2h 



482 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS. 

The great merit of the English comic poets of this period 
consists in the delineation of character j yet though many have 
certainly shown much talent, I cannot ascribe to any a pecu- 
liar genius for characterization. Even in this department the 
older poets (not only Shakspeare, for that may easily be sup- 
posed, but even Fletcher and Jonson) are superior to them. 
The moderns seldom possess the faculty of seizing the most 
hidden and involuntary emotions, and giving a comic expres- 
sion to them; they generally draw merely the natural or 
assumed surface of men. Moreover, the same circumstance 
which in France, after Moliere's time, was attended with such 
prejudicial effects, came here also into play. The comic muse, 
instead of becoming familiar with life in the middle and lower 
ranks (her proper sphere), assumed an air of distinction : she 
squeezed herself into courts, and endeavoured to snatch a 
resemblance of the heau monde. It was now no longer an 
English national, but a London comedy. The whole turns 
almost exclusively on fashionable love-suits and fashionable 
raillery; the love-affairs are either disgusting or insipid, and 
the raillery is always puerile and destitute of wit. These 
comic writers may have accurately hit the tone of their time ; 
in this they did their duty; but they have reared a lamentable 
memorial of their age. In few periods has taste in the fine 
arts been at such a low ebb as about the close of the seven- 
teenth and during the first half of the eighteenth century. 
The political machine kej)t its course ; wars, negotiations, and 
changes of states, give to this age a certain historical splendour; 
but the comic poets and portrait-painters have revealed to us 
the secret of its pitifulness — the former in their copies of the 
dresses, and the latter in the imitation of the social tone. I 
am convinced that if we could now listen to the conversation 
of the heau monde of that day, it would appear to us as 
pettily affected and full of tasteless pretension, as the hoops, 
the towering head-dresses and high-heeled shoes of the women, 
and the huge perukes, cravats, wide sleeves, and ribbon-knots 
of the men"^. 

* "When I make good or bad taste in dress an infallible criterion of 
social elegance or deformity, this must be limited to the age in which the 
fashion came up ; for it may sometimes be very difficult to overturn a 
WTetched fashion even when, in other things, a better taste has long pre- 
vailed. The dresses of the ancients were more simple, and consequently 
less subject to change of fashion ; and the male dress, in particular, was 



FARQUHAR — VANBRUGH STEELE — CONGREVE. 483 

The last, and not the least defect of the English comedies 
is their ofFensiveness. I may sum up the whole in one word 
by saying, that after all we know of the licentiousness of 
manners under Charles IL, we are still lost in astonishment 
at the audacious ribaldry of Wycherley and Congreve. 
Decency is not merely violated in the grossest manner in 
single speeches, and frequently in the whole plot; but in the 
character of the rake, the fashionable debauchee, a moral 
scepticism is directly preached up, and marriage is the con- 
stant subject of their ridicule. Beaumont and Fletcher por- 
trayed an irregular but vigorous nature : nothing, however, 
can be more repulsive than rude depravity coupled with 
claims to higher refinement. Under Queen Anne manners 
became again more decorous ; and this may easily be traced 
in the comedies : in the series of English comic poets, 
Wycherley, Congreve, Farquhar, Vanbrugh, Steele, Cibber, 
&c., we may perceive something like a gradation from the 
most unblushing indecency to a tolerable degree of modesty. 
However, the example of the predecessors has had more than 
a due influence on the successors. From prescriptive fame 
pieces keep possession of the stage such as no man in the pre- 
sent day durst venture to bring out. It is a remarkable 
phenomenon, the causes of which are deserving of inquiry, 
that the English nation, in the last half of the eighteenth 
century, passed all at once from the most opposite way of 
thinking, to an almost over-scrupulous strictness of manners 
in social conversation, in romances and plays, and in the 
plastic arts. 

Some writers have said of Congreve that he had too much 
wit for a comic poet. These people must have rather a 
strange notion of wit. The truth is, that Congreve and the 
other writers above mentioned possess in general much less 
comic than epigrammatic wit. The latter often degenerates 
into a laborious straining for wit. Steele's dialogue, for ex- 

almost unchangeable. However, even from the dresses alone, as we see 
them in the remains of antiquity, we may form a pretty accurate judgment 
of the character of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans. In the 
female portrait -busts of the time of the later Roman emperors, we often 
find the head-dresses extremely tasteless ; nay, even busts with peruques 
which may be taken off, probably for the purpose of changing them, as the 
originals themselves did. 

2 H 2 



484 COLMAN — ROWE. 

ample, puts us too mucli in mind of the letters in the Spectator, 
Farquhar's plots seem to me to be the most ingenious of all. 

The latest period of English Comedy begins nearly with 
Colman. Since that time the morals have been irreproach- 
able, and much has been done in the way of refined and 
original characterization ; the form, however, has on the whole 
remained the same, and in that respect I do not think the 
English comedies at all models. 

Tragedy has been often attempted in England in the eigh- 
teenth century, but a genius of the first rank has never made 
his appearance. They laid aside the manner of Dryden, how- 
ever, and that at least was an improvement. Howe was an 
honest admirer of Shakspeare, and his modest reverence for 
this superior genius was rewarded by a return to nature and 
truth. The traces of imitation are not to be mistaken : the 
part of Gloster in Jane Shore is even directly borrowed from 
Richard the Third. Rowe did not possess boldness and vigour, 
but wa,s not without sweetness and feeling; he could excite 
the softer emotions, and hence in his Fair Penitent, Jane 
Shore, and Lady Jane Gray, he has successfully chosen female 
heroines and their weaknesses for his subjects. 

Addison possessed an elegant mind, but he was by no means 
a poet. He undertook to purify the English Tragedy, by 
bringing it into a compliance with the supposed rules of good 
taste. We might have expected from a judge of the ancients, 
that he would have endeavoured to approach the Greek models. 
Whether he had any such intention I know not, but certain 
it is that he has produced nothing but a tragedy after the 
French model. Cato is a feeble and frigid piece, almost 
destitute of action, without one truly overpowering moment. 
Addison has so narrowed a great and heroic picture by his 
timid manner of treating it, that he could not, without foreign 
intermixture, even fill up the frame. Hence, he had recourse 
to the traditional love intrigues ; if we count well, we shall 
find in this piece no fewer than six persons in love : Cato's 
two sons, Marcia and Lucia, Juba and Sempronius. The 
good Cato cannot, therefore, as a provident father of a family, 
avoid arranging two marriages at the close. With the excep- 
tion of Sempronius, the villain of the piece, the lovers are one 
and all somewhat silly. Cato, who ought to be the soul of 
the whole, is hardly ever shown to us in action; nothing 
remains for him but to admire himself and to die. It might 



ADDISON HIS CATO. 485 

be thought that the stoical determination of suicide, without 
struggle and without passion, is not a fortunate subject ; but 
correctly speaking, no subjects are unfortunate, every thing 
depends on correctly apprehending them. Addison has been 
induced, by a wretched regard to Unity of Place, to leave out 
Caesar, the only worthy contrast to Cato; and, in this respect 
even Metastasio has managed matters better. The language 
is pure and simple, but without vigour; the rhynieless Iambic 
gives more freedom to the dialogue, and an air somewhat less 
conventional than it has in the French tragedies; but in vigor- 
ous eloquence, Cato remains far behind them. 

Addison took his measures well; he placed all the great 
and small critics, with Pope at their head, the whole militia 
of good taste under arms, that he might excite a high expec- 
tation of the piece which he had produced with so much 
labour. Cato was universally praised, as a work without an 
equal. And on what foundation do these boundless praises 
rest? On regularity of form? This had been already ob- 
served by the French poets for nearly a century, and not- 
withstanding its constraints they had often attained a much 
stronger pathetic effect. Or on the political sentiments? But 
in a single dialogue between Brutus and Cassius in Shakspeare 
there is more of a Eoman way of thinking and republican 
energy than in all Cato. 

I doubt whether this piece could ever have produced a 
powerful impression, but its reputation has certainly had a 
prejudicial influence on Tragedy in England. The example 
of Cato, and the translation of French tragedies, which be- 
came every day more frequent, could not, it is true, render 
universal the belief in the infallibility of the rules ; but they 
were held in sufficient consideration to disturb the conscience 
of the dramatic poets, who consequently were extremely timid 
in availing themselves of the prerogatives they inherited from 
Shakspeare. On the other hand, these prerogatives were at 
the same time problems; it requires no ordinary degree of 
skill to arrange^ with simplicity and perspicuity, such great 
masses as Shakspeare uses to bring together : more of draw- 
ing and perspective are required for an extensive fresco paint- 
ing, than for a small oil picture. In renouncing the inter- 
mixture of comic scenes when they no longer understood their 
ironical aim, they did perfectly right : Southern still attempted 
them in his OroonokO) but in his hands they exhibit a wretched 



486 LILLO GEORGE BARNWELL. 

appearance. With the general knowledge and admiration of 
the ancients which existed in England, we might have looked 
for some attempt at a true imitation of the Greek Tragedy; no 
such imitation has^ however, made its appearance; in the 
choice and handling of their materials they show an un- 
doubted affinity to the French, Some poets of celebrity in 
other departments of poetry, Young, Thomson, Glover, haye 
written tragedies, but no one of them has displayed any true 
tragical talent. 

They have now and then had recourse to familiar tragedy to 
assist the barrenness of imagination ; but the moral aim, which 
must exclusively prevail in this species, is a tnie extinguislier 
of genuine poetical inspiration. They have, therefore, been 
satisfied with a few attempts. The Merchant of London, and 
The Gamester, are the only plays in this way which have 
attained any great reputation. George Barnwell is remark- 
able from having been praised by Diderot and Lessing, as a 
model for imitation. This error could only have escaped 
from Lessing in the keenness of his hostility to the French 
conventional tone. For in truth it is necessary to keep Lillo's 
honest views constantly in mind, to prevent us from finding 
George Barnwell as laughable as it is certainly trivial. Who- 
ever possesses so little, or rather, no knowledge of men and of 
the world, ought not to set up for a public lecturer on morals. 
We might draw a very difi'erent conclusion from this piece, 
from that which the author had in view, namely, that to pre- 
vent young people from entertaining a violent passion, and 
being led at last to steal and murder, for the first wretch who 
spreads her snares for them, (which they of course cannot pos- 
sibly avoid,) we ought, at an early period, to make them 
acquainted with the true character of courtezans. Besides, I 
cannot approve of not making the gallows visible before the 
last scene ; such a piece ought alwaj^s to be acted with a place 
of execution in the background. With respect to the edifi- 
cation to be drawn from a drama of this kind, I should prefer 
the histories of malefactors, which in England are usually 
printed at executions; they contain, at least, real facts, instead 
of awkward fictions. 

Garrick's appearance forms an epoch in the history of the 
English theatre, as he chiefly dedicated his talents to the 
great characters of Shakspeare, and built his own fame on the 
growing admiration for this poet. Before his time, Shakspeare 



GARRICK — HIS HISTRIONIC TALENTS. 487 

bad only been brougbt on tbe stage in mutilated and disfigured 
alterations. Garrick returned on tbe wbole to tbe true ori- 
ginals, tbougb be still allowed bimself to make some very 
unfortunate cbanges. It appears to me tbat tbe only excu- 
sable alteration of Sbakspeare is, to leave out a few tbingsnot 
in conformity to tbe taste of tbe time. Garrick was undoubt- 
edly a great actor. Wbetber be always conceived tbe parts 
of Sbakspeare in tbe sense of tbe poet, I, from tbe very cir- 
cumstances stated in tbe eulogies on bis acting, sbould be 
inclined to doubt. He excited, bowever, a noble emulation to 
represent wortbily tbe great national poet ; tbis bas ever since 
been tbe bigbest aim of actors, and even at present tbe stage 
can boast of men wbose bistrionic talents are deservedly 
famous. 

But wby bas tbis revival of tbe admiration of Sbakspeare 
remained unproductive for dramatic poetry? Because be bas 
been too mucb tbe subject of astonisbment, as an unapproach- 
able genius wbo owed everytbing to nature and nothing to 
art. His success, it is tbougbt, is without example, and can 
never be repeated ; nay, it is even forbidden to venture into tbe 
same region. Had he been considered more from an artistic 
point of view, it would have led to an endeavour to understand 
the principles which he followed in his practice, and an attempt 
to master them. A meteor appears, disappears, and leaves no 
trace behind ; tbe course of a heavenly body, however, ought 
to be delineated by the astronomer, for the sake of investigat- 
ing more accurately tbe laws of general mechanics. 

I am not sufficiently acquainted with the latest dramatic 
productions of the English, to enter into a minute account of 
them. Tbat the dramatic art and the public taste are, how- 
ever, in a wretched state of decline, may, I think, be safely 
inferred from the following circumstance. Some years ago, 
several German plays found their way to the English stage; 
plays, which, it is true, are with us the favourites of the mul- 
titude, but which are not considered by the intelligent as 
forming a part of our literature, and in which distinguished 
actors are almost ashamed of earning applause. These pieces 
have met with extraordinary favour in England; they have, 
properly speaking, as the Italians say, fatto furore, though 
indeed tbe critics did not fail to declaim against their immo- 
rality, veiled over by sentimental hypocrisy. From the 
poverty of our dramatic literature, the admission of such abor- 



488 THE SPANISH DRAMA. 

tions into Germany may be easily comprehended ; but what 
can be alleged in favour of this depravity of taste in a nation 
like the English, which possesses such treasures, and which 
must therefore descend from such an elevation ? Certain 
writers are nothing in themselves; they are merely symptoms 
of the disease of their age; and were we to judge from them, 
there is but too much reason to fear that, in England, an effe- 
minate sentimentality in jDrivate life is more frequent, than 
from the astonishing jiolitical greatness and energy of the 
nation we should be led to suppose. 

May the romantic drama and the grand historical drama, 
those truly native species, be again speedily revived, and 
may Shakspeare find such worthy imitators as some of those 
whom Germany has to produce ! 



LECTURE XXIX. 

Spanisli Theatre — Its three Periods : Cen-antes, Lope deVega, Calderon — 
Spirit of the Spanish Poetry in general — Influence of the National 
History on it — Form, and various species of the Spanish Drama — 
Decline since the begmning of the eighteenth centuiy. 

The riches of the Spanish stage have become proverbial, and 
it has been more or less the custom of the Italian, French, and 
English dramatists, to draw from this source, and generally 
without acknowledgment. I have often, in the preceding 
Lectures, had occasion to notice this fact; it was incompa- 
tible, however, with my purpose, to give an enumeration of all 
that has been so borrowed, for it would have assumed rather a 
bulky appearance, and without great labour it could not have 
been rendered complete. What has been taken from the 
most celebrated Spanish poets miglit be easily pointed out; 
but the writers of the second and third rank have been equally 
laid under contribution, and their works are not easily met 
with out of Spain. Ingenious boldness, joined to easy clear- 
ness of intrigue, is so exclusively peculiar to the Spanish 
dramatists, that whenever I find these in a work, I consider 
myself justified in suspecting a Spanish origin, even though 
the circumstance may have been unknown to the author him- 
self, who drew his plagiarism from a nearer source.* 

* Thus for example, The Servant of two Masters, of Goldoni, a piece 



SPANISH DRAMA — DE LA HUERTA. 489 

From tlie political preponderance of Spain in the sixteenth 
century, a knowledge of its language became widely diffused 
throughout Europe. Even in the first half of the seyenteeuth 
century, many traces are to be found of an acquaintance with 
Spanish literature in France, Italy, England, and Germany; 
since that time, however, the study of it had every where 
fallen into neglect, till of late some zeal for it has been again 
excited in Germany. In France they have no other ideai 
of the Spanish theatre, than what can be formed from the 
translations of Linguet. These again have been rendered into 
German, and their number has been increased by others, 
in no respect better, derived immediately from the originals. 
The translators have, however, confined themselves almost 
exclusively to the department of comedies of intrigue, and 
though all the Spanish plays with the exception of a few En- 
tremeses, Saynetes, and those of a very late period, are versified, 
they have turned the whole into prose, and even considered 
themselves entitled to praise for having carefully removed 
every thing like poetical ornament. After such a mode of 
proceeding nothing but the material scaffolding of the original 
could remain ; tha beautiful colouring must have disappeared 
together with the form of execution. That translators who 
could show such a total want of judgment as to poetical ex- 
cellences would not choose the best pieces of the store, maybe 
easily supposed. The species in question, though in the in- 
vention of innumerable intrigues, of such a kind as the thea- 
trical literature of all other countries can produce but few 
examples of it, it certainly shows astonishing acuteness, is, 
nevertheless, by no means the most valuable part of the 
Spanish theatre, which displays a much greater brilliancy in 
the handling of wonderful, mythological, or historical subjects. 

The selection published by De la Huerta in sixteen small 
volumes, under the title of Teatro Hes'pafiol, with introduc- 
tions giving an account of the authors of the pieces and the 
different species, will not afford, even to one conversant with 
the languao-e, a very extensive acquaintance with the Spanish 
theatre. His collection is limited almost exclusively to the 
department of comedies in modern manners, and he has not 

Mghly distinguished above his others for the most amusing intrigue, 
passes for an original. A learned Spaniard has assured me, that he knows 
it to be a Spanish invention. Perhaps Goldoni had here merely an older 
Itahan imitation before him. 



490 SPANISH DUAMA — CERVANTES. 

admitted Into it any of tbe pieces of an earlier period, com- 
posed by Lope de Vega, or his predecessors. Blankenburg 
and Bouterwek* among ourselves have laboured to throw 
light on the earlier history of the Spanish theatre, before it 
acquired its proper shape and attained literary dignity, — a 
subject involved in much obscurity. But even at an after 
period, an immense number of works were written for the 
stage which never appeared in print, and which are either now 
lost or only exist in manuscript; while, on the other hand, 
there is hardly an instance of a piece being printed without 
having first been brought on the stage. A correct and com- 
plete history of the Spanish theatre, therefore, can only be 
executed in Spain. The notices of the German writers above- 
mentioned, are however of use, though not free from errors; 
their opinions of the poetical merit of the several pieces, and 
the general view which they have taken, appear to me exceed- 
ingly objectionable. 

The first advances of Dramatic Art in Spain were made in 
the last half of the sixteenth century; and with the end of 
the seventeenth it ceased to flourish. In the eighteenth, 
after the War of the Succession, (which seems to have had a 
very prejudicial influence on the Spanish literature in gene- 
ral,) very little can be mentioned which does not display 
extravagance, decay, the retention of old observances without 
meaning, or a tame imitation of foreign productions. The 
Spanish literari of the last generation frequently boast of 
their old national poets, the people entertain a strong attach- 
ment to them, and in Mexico, as well as Madrid, their pieces 
are always represented with impassioned applause. 

The various epochs in the formation of the Spanish theatre 
may be designated by the names of three of its most famous 
authors, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon. 

The earliest and most valuable information and opinions 
on this subject are to be found in the writings of Cervantes; 
chiefly in Don Quixote (in the dialogue with the Canon), in 
the Preface to his later plays, and in the Journey to Parnassus. 
He has also in various other places thrown out occasional 
remarks on the subject. He had witnessed in his youth the 
commencement of the dramatic art in Spain; the poetical 
poverty of which, as well as the meagreness of the theatrical 
decorations, are very humorously described by him. He was 

* The former, in his annotations on Sulzers Theorie der schonen 
Kunste the latter in his GeschicMe der Spanischen Poesie. 



SPANISH DRAMA — LOPE DE VEGA. 491 

justified in looking upon himself as one of tlie founders of 
this art; for before he gained immortal fame by his Don 
Quixote he had diligently laboured for the stage, and from 
twenty to thirty pieces (so negligently does he speak of them) 
from his pen had been acted with applause. On this ac- 
count, however, he made no very high claims, nor after they 
had fulfilled their momentary destination did he allow any of 
them to be printed; and it was only lately that two of these 
earlier labours were for the first time published. One of 
these plays, probably Cervantes' first, The Way of Living in 
Algiers {El Trato de ArgeT), still bears traces of the infancy 
of the art in the preponderance of narrative, in the general 
meagreness, and in the want of prominency in the figures and 
situations. The other, however. The Destruction of Numantia, 
has altogether the elevation of the tragical cothurnus; and, 
from its unconscious and unlaboured approximation to an- 
tique grandeur and purity, forms a remarkable phenomenon 
in the history of modern poetry. The idea of destiny pre- 
vails in it throughout; the allegorical figures which enter 
between the acts supply nearly, though in a difi'erent way, 
the place of the chorus in the Greek tragedies; they guide the 
reflection and propitiate the feeling. A great deed of heroism 
is accomplished ; the extremity of suflfering is endured with 
constancy; but it is the deed and the sufi"ering of a whole 
nation whose individual members, it may almost be said, 
appear but as examples of the general fortitude and magna- 
nimity, while the Roman heroes seem merely the instruments 
of fate. There is, if I may &o speak, a sort of Spartan 
pathos in this piece : every single and personal consideration 
is swallowed up in the feeling of patriotism ; and by allusions 
to the warlike fame of his nation in modern times, the poet 
has contrived to connect the ancient history with the interests 
of his own day. 

Lope de Vega appeared, and soon became the sole monarch 
of the stage ; Cervantes was unable to compete with him ; yet 
he was unwilling altogether to abandon a claim founded on 
earlier success; and shortly before his death, in the year 1615, 
he printed eight plays and an equal number of smaller in- 
terludes, as he had failed in his attempts to get them brought 
on the stage. They have generally been considered greatly 
inferior to his other prose and poetical works ; their modern 
editor is even of opinion that they were meant as parodies 
and satires on the vitiated taste of the time : but to find this 



492 SPANISH DRAMA — LOPE DE VEGA. 

hypothesis ridiculous, we have only to read them without 
any such prepossession. Had Cervantes entertained such a 
design, he would certainly have accomplished it in a very 
different way in one piece, and also in a manner both highly 
amusing and not liable to misconception. No, they were 
intended as pieces in the manner of Lope: contrary to his 
own convictions, Cervantes has here endeavoured, by a dis- 
play of greater variety, of wonderful plots, and theatrical 
effect to comply with the taste of his contemporaries. It 
would appear from them that he considered a superficial com- 
position as the main requisite for applause; his own, at least, 
is for the most part, extremely loose and ill-connected, and 
we have no examples in his prose works of a similar degree 
of negligence. Hence, as he partly renounced his peculiar 
excellences, we need not be astonished that he did not suc- 
ceed in surpassing Lope in his own walk. Two, however, of 
these pieces, The Christian Slaves in Algiers (Los Bafios de 
Argel), an alteration of the piece before-mentioned, and The 
Labyrinth of Love, are, in their whole plot, deserving of great 
praise, while all of them contain so many beautiful and inge- 
nious traits, that when we consider them by themselves, and 
without comparing them with the Destruction of Numantiay 
we feel disposed to look on the opinion entertained pretty 
generally by the Spanish critics as a mere prejudice. But on 
the other hand, when we comj)are them with Lope's pieces, 
or bear in mind the higher excellences to which Calderon had 
accustomed the public, this opinion will appear to admit of 
conditional justification. We may, on the whole, allow that 
the mind of this poet was most inclined to the epic, (taking 
the word in its more extensive signification, for the narrative 
form of composition) j and that the light and gentle manner 
in which he delights to move the mind is not well suited to 
the making the most of every moment, and to the rapid com- 
pression which are required on the theatre. But when we, 
on the other hand, view the energetical pathos in The De- 
struction of Numantia, we are constrained almost to consider 
it as merely accidental that Cervantes did not devote himself 
wholly to this species of writing, and find room in it for the 
complete development of his inventive mind. 

The sentence pronounced by Cervantes on the dramas of 
his later contemporaries is one of the neglected voices which, 
from time to time, in Spain have been raised, insisting on the 



SPANISH DRAMA LOPE DE VEGA. 493 

imitation of the ancient classics, -while the national taste had 
decidedly declared in favour of the romantic drama in its 
boldest form. On this subject Cervantes, from causes which 
we may easily comprehend, was not altogether impartial. 
Lope de Vega had followed him as a dramatic writer, and 
by his greater fertility and the effective brilliancy of 
his pieces, had driven him from the stage; a circumstance 
which ought certainly to be taken into account in explaining 
the discontent of Cervantes in his advanced age with the 
direction of the public taste and the constitution of the 
theatre. It would appear, too, that in his poetical mind 
there was a certain prosaical corner in which there still lurked 
a disposition to reject the wonderful, and the bold play of 
fancy, as contrary to probability and nature. On the autho- 
rity of the ancients he recommended a stricter separation of 
the several kinds of the drama; whereas the romantic art 
endeavours, in its productions, as he himself had done in his 
romances and novels, to blend all the elements of poetry; 
and he censured with great severity, as real offences against 
propriety, the rapid changes of time and place. It is remark- 
able that Lope himself was unacquainted with his own rights, 
and confessed that he wrote his pieces, contrary to the rules 
with which he was well acquainted, merely for the sake of 
pleasing the multitude. That this object entered prominently 
into his consideration is certainly true ; still he remains one 
of. the most extraordinary of all the popular and favourite 
theatrical writers that ever lived, and well deserves to be 
called in all seriousness by his rival and adversary, Cervantes, 
a wonder of nature. 

The pieces of Lope de Vega, numerous beyond all belief, 
have partly never been printed; while of those that have, 
a complete collection is seldom to be found, except in Spain. 
Many pieces are probably falsely ascribed to him; an abuse of 
which Calderon also complains. I know not whether Lope him- 
self ever gave a list of the pieces actually composed by him; 
indeed he could hardly at last have remembered the whole of 
them. However, by reading a few, we shall advance pretty 
far towards an acquaintance with this poet; nor need we 
be much afraid lest we should have failed to peruse the most 
excellent, as in his separate productions he does not surprise 
us by any elevated flight nor by laying open the whole 
unfathomable depths of his mind. This prolific writer, at one 



494 SPANISH DRAMA — CALDERON. 

time too much idolized, at another too much depreciated, 
appears here undoubtedly in the most advantageous light, as. 
the theatre was the best school for the correction of his thre©^^ 
great errors, want of connexion, diffuseness, and an unneces- 
sary parade of learning. In some of his pieces, especially the 
historical ones, founded on old romances or traditional tales, 
for instance, King Wamha, The Youthful Tricks of Bernardo 
del Carpio, The Battlements of Tor o, &c., there prevails a cer- 
tain rudeness of painting, which, however, is not altogether 
without character, and seems to have been pui'posely chosen 
to suit the subjects : in others, which portray the manners of 
his own time, as for instance, The Lively Fair One of Toledo, 
The Fair deformed, we may observe a highly cultivated 
social tone. All of them contain, besides truly interesting 
situations, a number of inimitable jokes; and there are, 
perhaps, very few of them which would not, if skilfully 
treated and adapted to our stages, produce a great effect 
in the present day. Their chief defects are, a profusion of 
injudicious invention, and negligence in the execution. They 
resemble the groups which an ingenious sketcher scrawls 
on paper without any preparation, and without even taking 
the necessary time; in which, notwithstanding this hasty 
negligence every line is full of life and significance. Besides 
the want of careful finish, the works of Lope are deficient in 
depth, and also in those more delicate allusions which consti- 
tute the peculiar mysteries of the art. 

If the Spanish theatre had not advanced farther, if it had pos^ 
sessed only the works of Lope and the more eminent of his con- 
temporaries, as Guillen de Castro, Montalban, Molina, Matos- 
Fragoso, &c., we should have to praise it, rather for grandeur 
of design and for promising subjects than for matured per- 
fection. But Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca now made his 
appearance, a writer as prolific and diligent as Lope, and a 
poet of a very different kind, — a jDoet if ever any man de- 
served that name. The "wonder of nature," the enthusiastic 
popularity, and the sovereignty of the stage were renewed in 
a much higher degree. The years of Calderon* keej) nearly 
equal pace with those of the seventeeth century; he was con- 
sequently sixteen when Cervantes, and thirty-five when Lope 
died, whom he survived nearly half a century. According 
to his biographer's account, Calderon wrote more than a hun- 
* Born in 160L 



SPANISH DRAMA — CALDERON. 495 

dred and twenty plays, more than a hundred spiritual allego- 
rical acts (Autos J, a hundred merry interludes or Saynetes"^' 
besides a number of poems which were not dramatical. As 
from his fourteenth to his eighty-first year, that in which he 
died, he continued to produce dramatic works, they spread 
oyer a great space, and we may therefore suppose that he did 
not write with the same haste as Lope; he had sufficient 
leisure to consider his plans maturely, which, without doubt, 
he has done. In the execution, he could not fail from his 
extensive practice to acquire great readiness. 

In this almost incalculable exuberance of production, we 
find nothing thrown out at random; all is finished in masterly 
perfection, agreeably to established and consistent principles, 
and with the most profound artistic views. This cannot 
be denied even by those who would confound the pure and 
high style of the romantic drama with mannerism, and con- 
sider these bold flights of poetry, on the extreme boundaries 
of the conceivable, as aberrations in art. For Calderon has 
every where converted that into matter what passed with his 
predecessors for form; — nothing less than the noblest and most 
exquisite excellence could satisfy him. And this is why 
he repeats himself in many expressions, images, comparisons, 
nay, even in many plays of situation; for he was too rich to 

* This account is perhaps somewhat rhetorical. The most complete, 
and in every respect the best edition of the plays, that of Apontes, contains 
only a hundred and eight pieces. At the request of a great Lord, Cal- 
deron, shortly before his death, gave a list of his genuine works. He 
names a hundred and eleven plays ; but among them there are consider- 
ably more than three which are not to be found in the collection of 
Apontes. Some of them may, indeed, be concealed under other titles, as, 
for instance, the piece, which Calderon himself calls, El Tuzani de la 
Alpujarra, is named in the collection, Amur despues de la Muerte. 
Others are unquestionably omitted, for instance, a Bon Quixote, which I 
should be particularly desirous of seeing. We may infer from many 
circumstances that Calderon had a great respect for Cervantes. The col- 
lection of the Autos sacrament ales contains only seventy-two, and of 
these several are not mentioned by Calderon. And yet he lays the 
greatest stress on these; wholly devoted to rehgion, he had become in his 
age more indifferent towards the temporal plays of his muse, although he 
did not reject them, and still continued to add to the number. It might 
well be with him as with an excessively wealthy man, who, in a general 
computation, is apt to forget many of the items of his capital. I have 
never yet been able to see any of the Saynetes of Calderon ; I cannot even 
find an account whether or not they have been ever collected and 
printed. 



496 SPANISH DRAMA — CALDERON. 

be under tlie necessity of borrowing from himself, much less 
from others. The effect on the stage is with Calderon the 
first and last thing; but this consideration, which is generally- 
felt by others as a restraint, is with him a positive end. I 
know of no dramatist equally skilled in converting effect into 
poetry, who is at once so sensibly vigorous and so ethereal. 

His dramas divide themselves into four principal classes : 
compositions on sacred subjects taken from scripture and 
legends; historical; mythological, or founded upon other 
fictitious materials; and finally, pictures of social life in 
modern manners. 

The pieces founded on the history of his own country are 
historical only in the more limited acceptation. The earlier 
periods of Spanish history have often been felt and portrayed 
by Calderon with the greatest truth ; but, in general, he had 
too decided, I might almost say, too burning a predilection 
for his own nation, to enter into the peculiarities of another; 
at best he could have portrayed what verges towards the 
sun, the South and the East; but classical antiquity, as well 
as the North of Europe, were altogether foreign to his con- 
ception. Materials of this description he has therefore taken 
in a perfectly fanciful sense : generally the Greek mythology 
became in his hands a delightful tale, and the Eoman history 
a majestic hyperbole. 

His sacred compositions must, however, in some degree, bo 
ranked as historical; for although surrounded with rich 
fiction, as is always the case in Calderon, they nevertheless 
in general express the character of Biblical or legendary 
story with great fidelity. They are distinguished, however, 
from the other historical pieces by the frequent prominency 
of a significant allegory, and by the religious enthusiasm with 
which the poet, in the spiritual acts designed for the celebra- 
tion of the festival of Corpus Christi, the Autos exhibits the 
universe as it were, under an allegorical representation in the 
purple flames of love. In this last class he was most admired 
by his contemporaries, and here also he himself set the highest 
value on his labours. But without having read, at least, one 
of them in a truly poetical translation, my auditors could not 
form the slightest idea of them ; while the due consideration 
of these Autos would demand a difiicult investigation into the 
admissibility of allegory into dramatical composition. I shall 
therefore confine myself to those of his dramas which are not 



SPANISH DRAMA : MORETO — ROXAS — SOLIS. 497 

allegorical. The cliaracterization of these I shall be very far 
from exhausting ; I can merely exhibit a few of their more 
general features. 

Of the great multitude of ingenious and acute writers, who 
were then tempted by the dazzling splendour of the theatrical 
career to write for the stage, the greater part were mere 
imitators of Calderon ; a few only deserve to be named along 
with him, as Don Agustin Moreto, Don Franzisco de Koxas, 
Don Antonio de Solis, the acute and eloquent historian of the 
conquest of Mexico, &c. The dramatic literature of the 
Spaniards can even boast of a royal poet, Philip IV., the 
great patron and admirer* of Calderon, to whom several 
anonymous pieces, with the epigraph de un ingenio de esta 
icorte, are ascribed. All the writers of that day wrote in a 
kindred spirit; they formed a true school of art. Many of 
them have peculiar excellences, but Calderon in boldness, 
fulness, and profundity, soars beyond them all; in him the 
romantic drama of the Spaniards attained the summit of per- 
fection. 

We shall endeavour to give a feeble idea of the spirit and 
form of these compositions, which differ so widely from every 
other European production. For this purpose, howev^er, we 
must enter in some measure into the character of the Spanish 
poetry in general, and those historical circumstances by which 
it has been determined. 

The beginnings of the Spanish poetry are extremely simple : 
its two fundamental forms were the romaunt and the &ong, 
and in these original national melodies we everywhere fancy 
we hear the accompaniment of the guitar. The romaunt, 
which is half Arabian in its origin, was at first a simple 
heroic tale; afterwards it became a very artificial, species, 
adapted to various uses, but in which the picturesque ingre- 
dient always predominated even to the most brilliant luxu- 
riance of colouring. The song again, almost destitute of 

* This monarch seems, in reality, to have had a relish for the peculiar 
excellence of his favourite poet, whom he considered as the brightest 
ornament of his court. He was so prepossessed in favour of the national 
drama, that he forbade the introduction into Spain of the Italian opera, 
which was then in general favour at the different European courts: an 
example which deserves to be held up to the German Princes, who have 
hitherto, from indifference towards every thing national, and partiality for 
every thing foreign, done all in their power to discourage the German 
poets. 

2l 



I 

498 SPANISH DRAMA : POETICAL INSPIRATION. 

imagery, expressed tender feelings in ingenious turns; it 
extends its sj)ortiveness to the very limits where the self- 
meditation, which endeavours to transfuse an inexpressible 
disposition of mind into thought, wings again the thought to 
dreamlike intimations. The forms of the song were diversified 
by the introduction into poetry of what in music is effected 
by variation. The rich properties of the Spanish language 
however could not fully develope themselves in these species of 
poetry, which were rather tender and infantine than elevated. 
Hence towards the beginning of the sixteenth century they 
adapted the more comprehensive forms of Italian poetry, 
Ottave, Terzine, Canzoni, Sonetti; and the Castilian language, 
the proudest daughter of the Latin, was then first enabled to 
display her whole power in dignity, beautiful boldness, and 
splendour of imagery. The Spanish with its guttural sounds, 
and frequent termination with consonants, is less soft than 
the Italian; but its tones are, if possible, more fuller and 
deeper, and fill the ear with a pure metallic resonance. It 
had not altogether lost the rough strength and heartiness of 
the Gothic, when Oriental intermixtures gave it a wonderful 
degree of sublimity, and elevated its poetry, intoxicated as it 
were with aromatic fragrances, far above all the scrupulous 
moderation of the sober West. 

The stream of poetical inspiration, swelled by every proud 
consciousness, increased with the growing fame in arms of 
this once so free and heroic na^tion. The Spaniards played a 
glorious part in the events of the middle ages, a part but too 
much forgotten by the envious ingratitude of modern times. 
They were then the forlorn out-posts of Europe; they lay on 
their Pyrenean peninsula as in a camp, exposed without 
foreign assistance to the incessant eruptions of the Arabians, 
but always ready for renewed conflicts. The founding of 
their Christian kingdom, through centuries of conflicts, from 
the time when the descendants of the Goths driven before 
the Moors into the mountains of the North first left their 
protecting shelter for the war of freedom and independence, 
down to the complete expulson of the Arabian invaders, was 
one long adventure of chivalry; nay, the preservation of 
Christianity itself in the face of so powerful a foe seems the 
wondrous work of more than mortal guidance. Accustomed 
to fight at the same time for liberty and religion, the Spaniard 
clung to his faith with a fiery zeal, as an acquisition purchased 



II 



SPANISH DRAMA : SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY. 409 

by the costly expenditure of noble blood. These consolations 
of a holy worship were to him the rewards of heroic exertion; 
in every church he saw as it were a trophy of his forefathers' 
bravery. Ready to shed the last drop of his blood in the 
cause of his God and his King; tenderly sensitive of his 
honour; proud, yet humble in the presence of all that is 
sacred and holy; serious, temperate, and modest was the old 
Castilian : and yet forsooth some are found to scoff at a noble 
and a loyal race because even at the plough they were lothe 
to lay aside the beloved sword, the instrument of their high 
vocation of patriotism and liberty. 

This love of war, and spirit of enterprise, which so many 
circumstances had thus served to keep alive among their sub- 
jects, the monarchs of Spain made use of, at the close of the 
fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century, in an attempt 
to obtain universal monarchy; and while the arms of the 
Spaniard were thus employed to effect the subjugation of 
other nations, he was himself deprived of his own political 
freedom. The faithless and tyrannical policy of Philip II. 
has unmeritedly drawn down on the whole nation the hatred 
of foreigners. In Italy, Macchiavelism was not confined to 
the Princes and Republican leaders; it was the universal 
character; all ranks were infected with the same love of 
artifice and fraud. But in Spain it must be laid to the 
charge of the Government alone, and even the religious per- 
secutions in that country seldom or never proceeded from the 
outbreakings of a universal popular fury. The Spaniard never 
presumed to question the conduct of his spiritual and worldly 
superiors, and carried on their wars of aggression and ambi- 
tion with the same fidelity and bravery which he had formerly 
displayed in his own wars of self-defence and patriotism. 
Personal glory, and a mistaken religious zeal, blinded him 
with respect to the justice of his cause. Enterprises before un- 
exampled, were eagerly undertaken, and successfully achieved ; 
a newly discovered world beyond the ocean was conquered by 
a handful of bold adventurers ; individual instances of cruelty 
and avarice may have stained the splendour of resolute heroism, 
but the mass of the nation was uninfected by its contagion. 
Nowhere did the spirit of chivalry so long outlive its poli- 
tical existence as in Spain. Long after the internal pro- 
sperity, as well as the foreign influence of the nation, had 
fatally declined under the ruinous errors of the Second Philip, 

2x2 



500 SPANISH DRAMA : POET-VrARRIORS. 

tliis spirit propagated itself even to the most flourisliing period 
of their literature, and plainly imprinted upon it an indelible 
stamp. Here, in all their dazzling features, but associated 
with far higher mental culture, the middle ages were, as it 
were, renewed — those times when princes and nobles loved to 
indite the lays of love and braverj^, and when, with hearts 
devoted equally to their lady-love and the Holy Sej)ulchre, 
knights joyfully exposed themselves to the da^ngers and hard- 
ships of pilgrimage to the Land of Promise, and when even a 
lion-hearted king touched the lute to tender sounds of amorous 
lamentation. The poets of Spain vfere not, as in most other 
countries of Europe, courtiers or scholars, or engaged in some 
peaceful art or other; of noble birth for the most part, they 
also led a warlike life. The union of the sword and the 
pen, and the exercise of arms and the nobler mental arts, 
was their Avatch-word. Garcilaso, one of the founders of 
Spanish poetry under Charles V., was a descendant of the 
Yncas of Peru, and in Africa, still accompanied by his agree- 
able muse, fell before the walls of Tunis : Camoens, the Por- 
tuguese, sailed as a soldier to the remotest Indies, in the track 
of the glorious Adventurer whose discoveries he celebrated: 
Don Alonso de Ercilla composed his Araucana in the midst of 
warfare with revolted savages, in a tent at the foot of the 
Cordilleras, or in wildernesses yet untrodden by men, or in a 
storm-tossed vessel on the restless ocean ; Cervjtntes purchased, 
with the loss of an arm, and a long slavery in Algiers, the 
honour of having fought, as a common soldier, in the battle 
of Lepanto, under the illustrious John of Austria; Lope de 
Vega, among other adventures, survived the misfortunes of 
the Invincible Armada; Calderon served several campaigns 
in Flanders and in Italy, and discharged the warlike duties 
of a knight of Santiago until he entered holy orders, and thus 
gave external evidence that religion was the ruling motive of 
his life. 

If a feeling of religion, a loyal heroism, honour, and love, 
be the foundation of romantic poetry, it could not fail to attain 
to its highest development in Spain, where its birth and growth 
were cherished by the most friendly auspices. The fancy of 
the Spaniards, like their active powers, was bold and venture- 
some; no mental adventure seemed too hazardous for it to 
essay. The popular predilection for surpassing marvels had 
already shown itself in its chivalrous romaunts. And so they 



SPANISH drama: caldehon. 501 

wislied also to see the wonderful on the stage; wlien, there- 
fore, their poets, standing on the lofty eminence of a highly 
polished state of art and societyj gave it the requisite form, 
breathed into it a musical soul, and refined its beautiful hues 
and fragrance from all corporeal grossness, there arose, from 
the very contrast of the matter and the form, an irresistible 
fascination. Amid the harmony of the most varied metre, 
the elegance of fanciful allusions, and that splendour of 
imagery and simile which no other language than their own 
could hope to furnish, combined with inventions ever new, and 
almost always pre-eminently ingenious, the spectators per- 
ceived in imagination a faint refulgence of the former great- 
ness of their nation which had measured the whole world 
with its victories. The most distant zones were called upon 
to contribute, for the gratification of the mother country, 
the treasures of fancy as well as of nature, and on the 
dominions of this poetry, as on that of Charles V., the sun 
may truly be said never to set. 

Even those plays of Calderou which, cast in modern man- 
ners, descend the most to the tone of common life, still fasci- 
nate us by a sort of fanciful magic, and cannot be considered 
in the same light with the ordinary run of comedies. Of those 
of Shakspeare, we have seen that they are always composed 
of two dissimilar elements : the comic, which, in so far as 
comic imitation requires the observance of local condi- 
tions, is true to English manners; and the romantic, which, 
as the native soil was not sufficiently poetical for it, 
is invariably transplanted to a foreign scene. In Spain, 
on the other hand, the national costume of that day still 
admitted of an ideal exhibition. This would not indeed 
have been possible, had Calderon introduced us into the 
interior of domestic life, where want and habit generally 
reduce all things to every-day narrowness. His comedies, 
like those of the ancients, end with marriages; but how 
different is all that precedes ! With them the most immorpd 
means are set in motion for the gratification of sensual pas- 
sions and selfish viev/s, human beings with their mental 
powers stand opposed to each other as mere physical beings, 
endeavouring to spy out and to expose their mutual vreaknesses. 
Calderon, it is true, also represents to us his principal charac- 
ters of both sexes carried away by the first ebullitions of 
youth, and in its unwavering pursuit of the honours and 



502 SPANISH DRAMA : CALDERON- 

pleasures of life ; but the aim after ^Yllicll tliey strive, and in 
the prosecution of which every thing else kicks the beam, is 
never in their minds confounded with any other good. Hon- 
our, love, and jealousy, are uniformly the motives out of which, 
by their dangerous but noble conflict, the plot arises, and is not 
purposely complicated by knavish trickery and deception. 
Honour is always an ideal principle ; for it rests, as I have 
elsewhere shown, on that higher morality which consecrates 
princij^les without regard to consequences. It may sink down to 
a mere conventional observance of social opinions or prejudices, 
to a mere instrument of vanity, but even when so disfigured 
we may still recognize in it some faint feature of a sublime 
idea. I know no apter symbol of tender sensibility of honour 
as portrayed by Calderon, than the fable of the ermine, 
which is said to prize so highly ihe whiteness of its fur, that 
rather than stain it in flight, it at once yields itself up to the 
hunters and death. This sense of honour is equally powerful 
in the female characters; it rules over love, which is only 
allowed a place beside it, but not above it. According to the 
sentiments of Calderon's dramas, the honour of woman con- 
sists in loving only one man of pure and spotless honour, and 
loving him with perfect purity, free from all ambiguous 
homage which encroaches too closely on the severe dignity of 
woman. Love requires inviolable secrecy till a lawful union 
permits it to be publicly declared. This secrecy secures it 
from the poisonous intermixture of vanity, which might plume 
itself with pretensions or boasts of a confessed preference; 
it gives it the appearance of a vow, which from its mystery 
is the more sacredly observed. This morality does not, it is 
true, condemn cunning and dissimulation if employed in the 
cause of love, and in so far as the rights of honour may be 
said to be infringed; but nevertheless the most delicate con- 
sideration is observed in the conflict with other duties, — with 
the obligations, for instance, of friendship. Moreover, a 
power of jealousy, always alive and often breaking out into 
fearful violence, — not, like that of the East, a jealousy of 
possession, — but one watchful of the slightest emotions of the 
heart and its most imperceptible demonstrations serves to 
ennoble love, as this feeling, whenever it is not absolutely 
exclusive, ceases to be itself. The perplexity to which the 
mental conflict of all these motives gives rise, frequently ends 
in nothing, and in such cases the catastrophe is truly comic; 



SPANISH DRAMA : CALDERON. 503 

sometimes^ however, it takes a tragic turn, and then honour 
becomes a hostile destiny for all who cannot satisfy its 
requisitions without sacrificing either their happiness or their 
innocence. 

These are the dramas of a higher kind, which by foreigners 
are called Pieces of Intrigue, but by Spaniards, from the dress 
in which they are acted, Comedies of Cloak and Sword (Come- 
dias de Capa y E spado). They have commonly no other 
burlesque part than that of the merry valet, known by the 
name of the Gracioso, This valet serves chiefly to parody 
the ideal motives from which his master acts, and this he 
frequently does with much wit and grace. Seldom is he with 
his artifices employed as an efficient lever in establishing the 
intrigue, in which we rather admire the wit of accident than 
of contrivance. Other pieces are called Comedias dejiguron; 
all the figures, with one exception, are usually the same as 
those in the former class, and this one is always drawn in 
caricature, and occupies a prominent place in the composition. 
To many of Calderon's dramas we cannot refuse the name of 
pieces of character, although we cannot look for very delicate 
characterization from the poets of a nation in which vehe- 
mence of passion and exaltation of fancy neither leave suffi- 
cient leisure nor sufficient coolness for prying observation. 

Another class of his pieces is called by Calderon himself 
festal dramas (fiestas). They were destined for representa- 
tion at court on solemn occasions ; and though they require 
the theatrical pomp of frequent change of decoration and 
visible wonders, and though music also is often introduced 
into them, still we may call them poetical operas, that is, 
dramas which, by the mere splendour of poetry, perform v^^hat 
in the opera can only be attained by the machinery, the 
music, and the dancing. Here the poet gives himself wholly 
up to the boldest flights of fancy, and his creations hardly 
seem to touch the earth. 

The mind of Calderon, however, is most distinctly expressed 
in the pieces on religious subjects. Love he paints merely in 
its most general features ; he but speaks her technical poetical 
language. Religion is his peculiar love, the heart of his heart. 
For religion alone he excites the most overpowering emotions, 
which penetrate into the inmost recesses of the souL He did 
not wish, it would seem, to do the same for mere worldly 
events. However turbid they may be in themselves to him, 



504 SPANISH DRAMA : CALDERON. 

such is the religious medium through which he views them, 
they are all cleared up and perfectly bright. Blessed man ! 
he had escaped from the wild labyrinths of doubt into the 
stronghold of belief; from thence, with undisturbed tranquil- 
lity of soul, he beheld and portrayed the storms of the world; 
to him human life was no longer a dark riddle. Even his 
tears reflect the image of heaven, like dew-drops on a flower 
in the sun. His poetry, whatever its apparent object, is a 
never-ending hymn of joy on the majesty of the creation; he 
celebrates the productions of nature and human art with an 
astonishment always joyful and always new, as if he saw them 
for the first time in an unworn festal splendour. It is the 
first awaking of Adam, and an eloquence withal, a skill of 
expression, and a thorough insight into the most mysterious 
affinities of nature, such as high mental culture and mature 
contemplation can alone bestow. When he compares the 
most remote objects, the greatest and the smallest, stars and 
flowers, the sense of all his metaphors is the mutual attraction 
subsisting between created things by virtue of their common 
origin, and this delightful harmony and unity of the world 
again is merely a refulgence of the eternal all-embracing love. 

Calderon was still flourishing at the time when other coun- 
tries of Europe began to manifest a strong inclination for that 
mannerism of taste in the arts, and those prosaic views in 
literature, which in the eighteenth century obtained such uni- 
rersal dominion. He is consequentl}'' to be considered as the 
last summit of romantic poetry. All its magnificence is 
lavished in his writings, as in fireworks the most brilliant 
and rarest combinations of colours, the most dazzling of fiery 
showers and circles are usually reserved for the last explosion. 

The Spanish theatre continued for nearly a century after 
Calderon to be cultivated in the same spirit. All, hovrerer, 
that was produced in that period is but an echo of previous 
productions, and nothing new and truly peculiar appeared 
such as deserves to be named after Calderon. After him a 
great barrenness is perceptible. Now and then attempts were 
made to produce regular tragedies, that is to say, after the 
French model. Even the declamatory drama of Diderot 
found imitators, I remember reading a Spanish play, 
which had for its object the abolition of the torture. The 
exhilaration to be expected from such a work may be easily 
conceived. A few Spaniards, apostates from the old national 



SPANISH DRAMA : MORETO. 505 

taste, extol Liglily the prosaical and moral dramas of Moratiu; 
but we see no reason for seeking in Spain what we Lave as 
good, or, more correctly speaking, equally bad at home. The 
theatrical audience has for the most part preserved itself tole- 
rably exempt from all such foreign influences ; a few years 
ago when a "bel esprit undertook to reduce a justly admired 
piece of Moreto {El Pareceido en la Gorte,) to a conformity 
with the three unities, the pit at Madrid were thrown into 
such a commotion that the players could only appease them 
by announcing the piece for the next day in its genuine 
shape. 

When in any country external circumstances, such, for 
instance, as the influence of the clergy, the oppression of the 
censorship, and even the jealous vigilance of the people in 
the maintenance of their old national customs, oppose the 
introduction of what in neighbouring states passes for a pro- 
gress in mental culture, it frequently happens that clever de- 
scription of heads will feel an undue longing for the forbidden 
fruit, and first begin to admire some artistic depravity, when 
it has elsewhere ceased to be fashionable. In particular ages 
certain mental maladies are so universally epidemic that a. 
nation can never be secure from infection till it has been 
innoculated with it. With respect, however, to the fatal en- 
lightenment of the last generation, the Spaniards it would 
appear have come off with the chicken-pox, while in the 
features of other nations the disfiguring variolous scars are 
but too visible. Living nearly in an insular situation, Spa- 
niards have slept through the eighteenth century, and how 
in the main could they have applied their time better? Should, 
the Spanish poetry ever again awake in old Europe, or in the 
New World, it would certainly have a step to make, from 
instinct to consciousness. What the Spaniards have hitherto 
loved from innate inclination, i\\Qj must learn to reverence on 
clear principles, and, undismayed at the criticism to which it 
has in the mean time been exposed, proceed to fresh creations 
in the spirit of their greatest poets. 



506 THE GERMAN THEATRE. 



LECTURE XXX. 

Origin of the German Theatre — Hans Sachs — Gryphius — The age of 
Gottsched — ^^^retched Imitation of the French — Lessing, Goethe, and 
Schiller — Review of their Works — Their influence on Chivalrous 
Dramas, Aifecting Dramas, and Family Pictures — Prospect for Futurity. 

In its cultivated state, the German tlieatre is mucli younger 
tlian any of those of which we have already spoken, and we 
are not therefore to wonder if the store of our literature in 
valuable original works, in this department, is also much 
more scanty. 

Little more than half a century ago, German literature was 
in point of talent at the very lowest ebb; at that time, how- 
ever, greater exertions first began to be made, and the Ger- 
mans have since advanced with gigantic strides. And if 
Dramatic Art has not been cultivated with the same success, 
and I may add with the same zeal, as other branches, the 
cause must perhaps be attributed to a number of unfavourable 
circumstances rather than to any want of talents. 

The rude beginnings of the stage are with us as old as 
with other countries*. The oldest drama which we have in 
manuscript is the production of one Hans Rosenpluet, a native 
of Nuremberg, about the middle of the fifteenth century. 
He was followed by two fruitful writers born in the same 
imperial city, Hans Sachs and Ayrer. Among the works of 
Hans Sachs we find, besides merry carnival plays, a great mul- 
titude of tragedies, comedies, histories both spiritual and tem- 
poral, where the prologue and epilogue are always spoken by 
the herald. The latter, it appears, were all acted without 
any theatrical apparatus, not by players, but by respectable 
citizens, as an allowable relaxation for the mind. The car- 
nival plays are somewhat coarse, but not unfreq^uently ex- 

* The first mention of the mysteries or religious representations in 
Germany, with which I am acquainted, is to be found in the Eulensjnegel. 
In the 13th Histoiy, we may see this merry, but somewhat disgusting 
trick, of the celebrated buffoon : " How Eulenspiegel made a play in the 
^ Easter fair, in which the priest and his maid-servant fought with the 
boors." Eulenspiegel is stated to have Hved towards the middle of the 
fourteenth centaiy, but the book cannot be placed farther back than the 
beginning of the fifteenth. 



HANS SACHS — OPIZ. 507 

tremely droll, as the jokes in general are; they often run out 
into the wildest farce, and, inspired by mirth and drollery, 
leare far behind the narrow bounds of the world of reality. 
In all these plays the composition is respectable, and without 
round-about goes at once to the point: all the characters, 
from God the Father downwards, state at once in the clearest 
terms what they have at heart, and the reasons which have 
caused them to make their appearance ; they resemble those 
figures in old pictures who have written labels placed in 
their mouths, to aid the defective expression of the attitudes. 
In form they approach most nearly to what was elsewhere 
called Moralities ; allegorical personages are frequent in them. 
These sketches of a dramatic art yet in its infancy, are 
feebly but not falsely drawn; and if only we had continued 
to proceed in the same path, we should have produced some- 
thing better and more characteristic than the fruits of the 
seventeenth century. 

In the first half of this century, poetry left the sphere of 
common life, to which it had so long been confined, and fell 
into the hands of the learned. Opiz, who may be considered 
as the founder of its modern form, translated several tragedies 
from the ancients into verse, and composed pastoral operas 
after the manner of the Italians ; but I know not whether he 
wrote anything expressly for the stage. He was followed by 
Andreas Gryphius, who may be styled our first dramatic 
writer. He possessed a certain extent of erudition in his 
particular department, as is proved by several of his imitations 
and translations ; a piece from the French, one from the Ita- 
lian, a tragedy from the Flemish of Vondel ; lastly, a farce 
called Feter Sguenz, an extension of the burlesque tragedy of 
Pyramus and Thisbe, in The Midsummer Night's Dream of 
Shakspeare. The latter was then almost unknown beyond 
his own island; the learned Morhof, who wrote in the last 
half of the seventeenth century, confesses that he had never 
seen Shakspeare's works, though he was very well acquainted 
with Ben Jonson. Even about the middle of the last century, 
a writer of repute in his days, and not without merit, has in 
one of his treatises instituted a comparison between Shak- 
speare and Andreas Gryphius, the whole resemblance consist- 
ing in this, that Gryphius, like Shakspeare, was also fond of 
calling up the spirits of the departed. He seems rather to 
have had Vondel, the Fleming, before his eyes, a writer still 



508 GRYPHIUS — GOTTSCHED. 

liiglily celebrated by liis conutrymen, and universally called 
by them, tlie great Vondel, wliile Grypbius himself has been 
consigned to oblivion. Unfortunately the metre in Gryphius's 
plays is the Alexandrine ; the form, however, is not so con- 
fined as that of the French at an after period ; the scene some- 
times changes, and the interludes, partly musical, partly 
allegorical, bear some resemblance to the English masques. 
In other respects, Gryphius possessed little theatrical skill, 
and I do not even know if his pieces were ever actually 
brought out on the stage. The tragedies of Lohenstein, who 
in his day may be styled the Marino of our literature, in their 
structure resemble those of Gryphius; but, not to mention 
their other faults, they are of such an immeasurable length as 
to set all ideas of representation at defiance. 

The pitiful condition of the theatre in Germany at the end 
of the seventeenth and during the first third part of the eigh- 
teenth century, wherever there was any other stage than that 
of puppet-shovvs and mountebanks, corresponded exactly to 
that of the other branches of our literature. We have a 
standard for this wretchedness, in the fact that Gottsched 
actually once passed for the restorer of our literature; Gotts- 
ched, whose writings resemble the watery beverage, which 
was then usually recommended to convalescent patients, from 
an idea that they could bea,r nothing stronger, which, how- 
ever, did but stilt more enfeeble their stomachs. Gottsched, 
among his other labours, composed a grea^t deal for the theatre; 
connected with a certain Madam Neuber, who was at the 
head of a company of players in Leipsic, he discarded Punch 
(Hauswurst), whom they buried solemnly with great triumph. 
I can easily conceive that the extemporaneous part of Punchy 
of which we may even yet form some notion from the puppet- 
shows, was not always very skilfully filled up, and that many 
platitudes were occasionally uttered by him ; but still, on the 
whole, Punch had certainly more sense in his little finger than 
Gottsched in his whole body. Punch, as an allegorical per- 
sonage, is immortal; and however strong the belief in his 
death may be, in some grave office-bearer or other he still 
pops up unexpectedly upon us almost every day. 

Gottsched and his school now inundated the German the- 
atre, which, under the influence of these insipid a.nd diffuse 
translations from the French, was hereafter to become regu- 
lar. Heads of a better description began to labour for the 



GELLERT ELIAS SCHLEGEL. 50& 

stage; but^ instead of bringing forth really original works, 
they contented themselves with producing wretched imita- 
tions ; and the reputation of the French theatre was so great, 
that from it was borrowed the most contemptible mannerism 
no less than the fruits of a better taste. Thus, for example, 
Gellert still composed pastoral plays after bad French models, 
in which- shepherds and shepherdesses, with rose-red and 
apple-green ribands, uttered all manner of insipid compli- 
ments to one another. 

Besides the versions of French comedies, others, translated 
from the Danish of Holberg, were acted with great applause. 
This writer has certainly great merit. His pictures of man- 
ners possess great local truth; his exhibitions of depravity, 
folly, aad stupidity, are searching and complete; in strength 
of comic motives and situations he is not defective ; only he 
does not show much invention in his intrigues. The execu- 
tion runs out too much into breadth. The Danes speak in the 
highest terms of the delicacy of his jokes in their own lan- 
guage; but to our present taste the vulgarity of his tone is 
revolting, though in the low sphere in which he moves, and 
amidst incessant storms of cudgellings, it may be natural 
enough. Attempts have lately been made to revive his 
works, but seldom with any great success. As his principal 
merit consists in his characterization, which certainly borders 
somewhat on caricature, he requires good comic actors to 
represent him with advantage. 

A few plays of that time, in the manners of our own coun- 
try, by Gellert and Elias Schlegel, are not without merit; 
only they have this error, that in drawing folly and stupidity 
the same wearisomeness has crept into their picture which is 
inseparable from them in real life. 

In tragedies, properly so called, after French models, the 
first who were in any degree successful were Elias Schlegel, 
and afterwards Cronegk and Weisse. I know not whether 
their labours, if translated into good French verse, would 
then appear as frigid as they now do in German. It is insuf- 
ferable to us to read verses of an ell long, in which the style 
seldom rises above v/atery prose; for a true poetic language 
was not formed in German until a subsequent period. The 
Alexandrine, which in no language can be a good metre, is 
doubly stiff and heavy in ours. Long after our poetry had 
again begun to take a higher flight, Gotter, in his translation 



510 GOTTER — HOLBERG LESSING. 

of French tragedies^ made tlie last attempt to ennoble the 
Alexandrme and procure its re-admission into Tragedy, and, 
it appears to me, proved by his example that vre must for 
ever renounce the idea. It serves admirably, however, for a 
parody of the stilted style of false tragical emphasis ; its use, 
too, is much to be recommended in some kinds of Comedy, 
especially in small afterpieces. Those earlier tragedies, after 
the French model, notwithstanding the uncommon applause 
they met with in their day, show how little hope there is of any 
progress of art in the way of slavish imitation. Even a form, 
narrow in itself, when it has been established under the influ- 
ence of a national way of thinking, has still some significance ; 
but when it is blindly taken on trust in other countries, it 
becomes altogether a Spanish mantle. 

Thus bad translations of French comedies, with j)ieces from 
Holberg, and afterwards from Goldoni, and with a few imita- 
tions of a public nature, and without any peculiar S23irit, 
constituted the whole repertory of our stage, till at last Les- 
sing, Goethe, and Schiller, successively appeared and redeemed 
the German theatre from its long-continued mediocrity. 

Lessing, indeed, in his early dramatic labours, did homage 
to the spirit of his age. His youthful comedies are rather in- 
significant ; they do not already announce the great mind who 
was afterwards to form an epoch in so many departments of 
literature. He sketched several tragedies after the French 
rules, and executed several scenes in Alexandrines, but has 
succeeded with none : it would appear that he had not the 
requisite facility for so difficult a metre. Even his Miss Sara 
Sampson is a familiar tragedy in the lachrymose and creeping 
style, in which we evidently see that he had George Barnwell 
before his eyes as a model. In the year 1767, his connexion 
with a company of actors in Hamburgh, and the editorship of 
a periodical paper dedicated to theatrical criticism, gave him 
an opportunity of considering more closely into the nature 
and requisitions of theatrical composition. In this paper he 
displayed much wit and acuteness ; his bold, nay, (considering 
the oj^inions then prevalent,) his hazardous attacks were 
especially successful in overthrowing the usurpation of French 
taste in Tragedy. With such success were his labours at- 
tended, that, shortly after the publication of his Dramaturgie, 
translations of French tragedies, and German tragedies 
modelled after them, disappeared altogether from the stage. 



lessing: his mtnna von barnhelm. 511 

He was the first who spoke with warmth of Shakspeare^ and 
paved the way for his reception in Germany. But his linger- 
ing faith in Aristotle^ with the influence which Diderot's writ- 
ings had had on him, produced a strange compound in his 
theory of the dramatic art. He did not understand the 
rights of poetical imitation, and demanded not only in dia- 
logue, but everywhere else also, a naked copy of nature, just 
as if this were in general allowable, or even possible in the 
fine arts. His attack on the Alexandrine was just, but, on 
the other hand, he wished to, and was only too successful 
in abolishing all versification : for it is to this that we must 
impute the iu credible deficiency of our actors in getting by 
heart and delivering verse. Even yet they cannot habituate 
themselves to it. He was thus also indirectly the cause of 
the insipid aflfectation of nature of our Dramatic writers, 
which a general use of versification would, in some degree, 
have restrained. 

Lessing, by his own confession, was no poet, and the few 
dramas which he produced in his riper years were the slow 
result of great labour. Minna vo7i Barnlielm is a true comedy 
of the refined class ; in point of form it holds a middle 
place between the French and English style ; the spirit of the 
invention, however, and the social tone portrayed in it, are 
peculiarly German. Every thing is even locally determined; 
and the allusions to the memorable events of the Seven Years' 
War contributed not a little to the extraordinary success 
which this comedy obtained at the time. In the serious part 
the expression of feeling is not free from afifectatiou, and the 
difiiculties of the two lovers are carried even to a painful height. 
The comic secondary figures are drawn with much drollery 
and humour, and bear a genuine German stamp. 

Emilia Galotti was still more admired than Minna von 
Barnhelm, but hardly, I think, with justice. Its plan, per- 
haps, has been better considered, and worked out with still 
greater diligence; but Minna von Barnhelm answers better to 
the genuine idea of Comedy than Emilia Galotti to that of 
Tragedy. Lessing's theory of the Dramatic Art would, it is 
easily conceived, have much less of prejudicial influence on a 
demi-prosaic species than upon one which must inevitably sink 
when it does not take the highest flight. He was now too 
well acquainted with the world to fall again into the drawling, 



512 lessixg: emilia galotti — nathan der weise. 

laclirjTiiose, and sermonizing tone Avhich prevails in his Miss 
Sara Sampson tlirougliout. On the other hand, his sound 
sense, notwithstanding all his admiration of Diderot, preserved 
him from his declamatory and emphatical style, which owes its 
chief effect to breaks and marks of interrogation. But as in 
the dialogue he resolutely rejected all poetical elevation, he 
did not escape this fault without falling into another. He 
introduced into Tragedy the cool and close observation of 
Comedy; in Emilia Galotti the passions are rather acutely 
and wittily characterized than eloquently expressed. Under 
a belief that the drama is most powerful when it exhibits 
faithful copies of what we know, and comes nearest home to 
ourselves, he has disguised, under fictitious names, modern 
European circumstances, and the manners of the day, an event 
imperishably recorded in the history of the w^orld, a famous 
deed of the rough old Roman A^rtue — the murder of Virginia 
by her father. Virginia is converted into a Countess Galotti, 
Virginius into Count Odoardo, an Italian prince takes the 
place of Appius Claudius, and a chamberlain that of the unblush- 
ing minister of his lusts, &c. It is not properly a familiar tra- 
gedy, but a court tragedy in the conversational tone, to which 
in some parts the sword of state and the hat under the arm 
-as essentially belong as to many French tragedies. Lessing 
wished to transplant into the renownless circle of the princi- 
pality of Massa Carara the violent injustice of the Decemvir's 
inevitable tyranny j but as by taking a few steps we can ex- 
tricate ourselves from so petty a territory, so, after a slight 
consideration, we can easily escape from the assumption so 
laboriously planned by the poet; on which, however, the 
necessity of the catastrophe wholly rests. The visible care 
with which he has assigned a motive for every thing, invites 
to a closer examination, in which we are little likely to be inter- 
rupted by any of the magical illusions of imagination : and in 
such examination the want of internal connectedness cannot 
escape detection, however much of thought and reflection the 
outward structure of a drama may display. 

It is singular enough, that of all the dramatical works of 
Lessing, the last, Xathan der Weise, which he wrote when his 
zeal for the improvement of the German theatre had nearly 
cooled, and, as he says, merely with a view to laugh at theo- 
iogistS; should be the most conformable to the genuine rules 



LESSING ENGEL. 513 

of art. A remarkable tale of Boccacio is wrought up with a 
number of inventions, which, however wonderful, are yet not 
improbable, if the circumstances of the times are considered ; 
the fictitious persons are grouped round a real and famous 
character, the great Saladin, who is draw^n with historical 
truth; the crusades in the background, the scene at Jerusa- 
lem, the meeting of persons of various nations and religions 
on this Oriental soil, — all this gives to the work a romantic 
air, and with the thoughts, foreign to the age in question, 
which for the sake of his philosophical views the poet has in- 
terspersed, forms a contrast somewhat hazardous indeed, but 
jet exceedingly attractive. The form is freer and more con- 
prehensive than in Lessing's other pieces ; it is very nearly 
that of a drama of Shakspeare. He has also returned here to 
the use of versification, which he had formerly rejected; not 
indeed of the Alexandrine, for the discarding of which from 
the serious drama we are in every respect indebted to him, but 
the rhymeless Iambic. The verses in Nathan are indeed often 
harsh and carelessly laboured, but truly dialogical ; and the ad- 
vantageous influence of versification becomes at once apparent 
upon comparing the tone of the present piece with the prose 
of the others. Had not the development of the truths which 
Lessing had particularly at heart demanded so much of repose, 
had there been more of rapid motion in the action, the piece 
would certainly have pleased also on the stage. That Lessing, 
with all his independence of mind, was still in his dramatical 
principles influenced in some measure by the general inclina- 
tion and tastes of his age, I infer from this, that the imitators 
of Nathan were very few as compared with those of Emilia, 
Galotti. Among the striking imitations of the latter style, I 
I will merely mention the Julius von Tarent. 

Engel must be regarded as a disciple of Lessing. His 
•small after-pieces in the manner of Lessing are perfectly 
insignificant; but his treatise on imitation {Mimik) shows the 
point to which the theory of his master leads. This book con- 
tains many useful observations on the first elements of the 
language of gesture : the grgind error of the author is, that he 
considered it a complete system of mimicry or imitation, 
though it only treats of the expression of the passions, and 
does not contain a syllable on the subject of exhibition of 
character. Moreover, in his histrionic art he has not given a 
place to the ideas of tragic comic ; and it may easily be sup- 

2 k 



514 GOETHE — GOTZ TON BERLICHINGEX. 

posed tliat lie rejects ideality of eA'ery kind*, and merely 
requires a bare copy of nature. 

The nearer I draw to tbe present times the more I wish to 
be general in my observations, and to avoid entering into a 
minute criticism of works of living writers with part of whom 
I have been, or still am, in relations of personal friendship or 
hostility. Of the dramatic career, however, of Goethe and 
Schiller, two writers of whom our nation is justly proud, and 
whose intimate society has frequently enabled me to correct 
and enlarge my own ideas of art, I may speak with the frank- 
ness that is worthy of their great and disinterested labours. 
The errors which, under the influence of erroneous principles, 
they at first gave rise to, are either already, or soon will be, 
sunk in oblivion, even because from their very mistakes they 
contrived to advance towards greater j)urity and perfectness; 
their works will live, and in them, to say the least, we have 
the foundation of a dramatic school at once essentially Ger- 
man, and governed by genuine principles of art. 

Scarcely had Goethe, in his Werther, published as it were 
a declaration of the rights of feeling in opposition to the 
tyranny of social relations, when, by the example which he 
set in Gotz von Berlic1iingeii,\iQ protested against the arbitrary 
rules which had hitherto fettered dramatic poetry. In this 
play we see not an imitation of Shakspeare, but the inspira- 
tion excited in a kindred mind by a creative genius. In the 
dialogue, he put in practice Lessing's principles of nature, 
only with greater boldness; for in it he rejected not only 
versification and all embellishments, but also disregarded the 
laws of written language to a degree of licence which had never 
been ventured upon before. He avoided all poetical circumlo- 
cutions; the picture was to be the very thing itself; and thus 
he sounded in our ears the tone of a remote age in a degree 
illusory enough for those at least who had never learned from 
historical monuments the very language in which our ancestors 

* Among other strange tilings Engel says, that as the language of 
Euripides, the latest, and in his opinion the most perfect of the Greek tra- 
gedians has less elevation than that of his predecessors, it is probable that, 
had the Greeks carried Tragedy to further perfection, they would have pro- 
ceeded a step farther : the next step forward would have been to discard 
verse altogether. So totally ignorant was Engel of the spirit of Grecian 
art. This approach to the tone of common hfe, which certainly may be 
traced in Euripides, is the very indication of the decline and impending 
fall of Tragedy : but even in Comedy the Greeks never could bring them- 
selves to make use of prose. 



GOETHE — CLAVIGO — EGMONT. 515 

themselves spoke. Most movingly lias he expressed the old 
German cordiality : the situations which are sketched with a 
few rapid strokes are irresistibly powerful ; the whole conveys 
a great historical .meaning, for it represents the conflict be- 
tween a departing and a coming age ; between a century of 
rude but vigorous independence, and one of political tameness. 
In this composition the poet never seems to have had an eye 
to its representation on the stage ; rather does he appear, in 
his youthful arrogance, to have scorned it for its insufficiency. 

It seems, in general, to have been the grand object of Goe- 
the to express his genius in his works, and to give new poeti- 
cal animation to his age; as to form, he was indifferent about 
it, though, for the most part, he preferred the dramatic. At 
the same time he was a warm friend of the theatre, and some- 
times condescended even to comply with its demands as 
settled by custom and the existing taste; as, for instance, in 
his Clavigo, a familiar tragedy in Lessing's manner. Besides 
other defects of this piece, the fifth act does not correspond 
with the rest. In the four first acts Goethe adhered pretty 
closely to the story of Beaumarchais, but he invented the 
catastrophe ; and when Ave observe that it strongly reminds 
the reader of Ophelia's burial, and the meeting of Hamlet and 
Laertes at her grave, we have said enough to convey an idea 
how strong a contrast it forms to the tone and colouring of the 
rest. In Stella Goethe has taken nearly the same liberty with, 
the story of Count von Gleichen which Lessing did with that 
of Virginia, but his labours were still more unsuccessful; the 
trait of the times of the Crusades on which he founded his 
play is affecting, true-hearted, and even edifying ; but Stella 
can only flatter the sentimentality of superficial feeling. 

At a later period he endeavoured to effect a reconciliation 
between his own views of art and the common dramatic 
forms, even the very lowest, in all of v/hich almost he has made 
at least a single attempt. In Ipiigenia he attempted to ex- 
press the spirit of Ancient Tragedy, according to his concep- 
tions of it, with regard especially to repose, perspicuity, and 
ideality. With the same simplicity, flexibility, and noble 
elegance, he composed his Tasso, in which he has availed 
himself of an historical anecdote to embody in a general sig- 
nificance the contrast between a court and a poet's life. 
Egmont again is a romantic and historical drama, the style of 
which steers a middle course between his first manner in Gotz^ 

2k2 



i 



516 GOETHE — TASSO — JERY UND BATETY, ETC. 

and tlie form of Shakspeare. Erwin unci Ehnire and Clau- 
dine von Yillabella, if I may say so, are ideal operettes, which 
breathe so lightly and airily that, with the accompaniments of 
music and acting, they would be in danger of becoming heavy 
and prosaic; in these pieces the noble and sustained style of 
the dialogue in Tasso is diversified with the most tender songs.. 
Jery und Bcitely is a charming natural picture of Swiss man- 
ners, and in the spirit and form of the best French operettes ; 
Sclierz List und Rache again is a true opera hiiffa, full of 
Italian Lazzi. Die Mitschiddigen is a comedy of common 
life in rhyme, and after the French rules. Goethe carried 
his condescension so far that he even wrote a continuation of 
an after-piece of Florian's; and his taste was so impartial that 
he even translated several of Voltaire's tragedies for the Ger- 
man stage. Goethe's words and rhythm no doubt have always 
a golden resonance, but still we cannot jDraise these pieces as 
successful translations; and indeed it would be matter of 
regret if that had succeeded which ought never to have been 
attempted. To banish these unprofitable productions from the 
German soil, it is not necessary to call in the aid of Les- 
siug's Bramaturgie ; Goethe's own masterly parody on French 
Tragedy in some scenes of Esther, will do this much more 
amusingly and effectually. 

Der Triwni2:>h der E mpjlndsamlceit (The Triumph of Sen- 
sibility) is a highly ingenious satire of Goethe's own imitators, 
and inclines to the arbitrary comic, and the fancifully symbo- 
lical of Aristophanes, but a modest Aristophanes in good 
company and at court. At a much earlier period Goethe 
had, in some of his merry tales and carnival plays, completely 
appropria,ted the manner of our honest Hans Sachs. 

In all these transformations we distinctly recognize the same 
free and powerful poetical spirit, to which we may safely 
apply the Homeric lines on Proteus : 

'AW TjTOL TTpcoricTTa Xecov ykv^r rjvyevetos — 

Yivero 6' vypov vdcop, Kai 8ev8peQv v'^LireTrjkov. Odyss. lib, iv» 

A lion now, he curls a surgy mane ; 

Here from our strict embrace a stream he glides, 

And last, sublime his stately growth he rears, 

A tree, and well-dissembled fohage wears. — Pope.* 

* I have here quoted the translation of Pope, though nothing can weD 
be more vapid and more unlike the original, which is hterally, " Fu-st, he 



GOETHE FAUST. 517 

To the youthful epoch belongs his Faust, a work which was 
early planned, though not published till a late period, and 
which even in its latest shape is still a fragment, and from its 
very nature perhaps must always remain so. It is hard to 
say whether we are here more lost in astonishment at the 
heights which the poet frequently reaches, or seized with 
giddiness at the depths which he lays open to our sight. But 
this is not the place to express the whole of our admiration of 
this labyrinthine and boundless work, the peculiar creation of 
Goethe ; we have merely to consider it in a dramatic point of 
view. The marvellous popular story of Faustus is a subject 
peculiarly adapted for the stage; and the Marionette play, 
from which Goethe, after Lessing*, took the first idea of a 
drama, satisfies our expectation even in the meagre scenes and 
sorry words of ignorant puppet-showmen. Goethe's work, 
which in some points adheres closely to the tradition, but 
leaves it entirely in others, purposely runs out in all directions 
beyond the dimensions of the theatre. In many scenes the 
action stands quite still, and they consist wholly of long soli-r 
loquies, or conversations, delineating Faustus's internal con- 
ditions and dispositions, and the development of his reflections 
on the insufficiency of human knowledge, and the unsatisfac- 
tory lot of human nature; other scenes, though in themselves 
extremely ingenious and significant, nevertheless, in regard to 
the progress of the action, possess an accidental appearance; 
many again, while they are in the conception theatrically 

became a lion with a huge mane — and then flowing water; and a tree 
with lofty foHage," — It would not, perhaps, be advisable to recur to our 
earhest mode of classical translation, Mne for hue, and nearly word for 
word ; but when German Literature shall be better known in England, it 
will be seen from the masterly versions of Voss and Schlegel, that without 
dilutuig by idle epithets one hue into three, as in the above example, it is 
stOl possible to combine fidehty with spirit. The German translation 
quoted by Mr. Schlegel runs, 

Ersthch ward er eiti Leu mit fiirchterlich roUeneler Mahne, 

Floss dann als Wasser dahin, und rauscht' als Baum in den Wolken. 

—Trans. 

* Lessing has borrowed the only scene of his sketch which he has 
pubhshed, (Faustus summoning the evil spirits in order to select the 
nimblest for his servant,) from the old piece which bears the showy title: 
Infelix Prudentia, or Doctor Joannes Faustus. In England Marlow had 
long ago written a Faustus, but unfortunately it is not printed in Dodsley's 
Collection. 



518 GOETHE — FAUST IPIIIGENIA IN TAURUS. 

eflfective, are but slightly sketched, — rhapsodical fragments 
without beginning or end, in which the poet opens for a mo- 
ment a surprising prospect, and then immediately drops the 
curtain again: whereas in the truly dramatic poem, intended 
to carry the spectators along with it, the separate parts must 
be fashioned after the figure of the whole, so that we may say, 
each scene may have its exposition, its intrigue, and winding 
up. Some scenes, full of the highest energy and overpower- 
ing pathos, for example, the murder of Valentine, and ]\Iar- 
garet and Faustus in the dimgeon, prove that the poet was a 
complete master of stage effect, and that he merely sacrificed 
it for the sake of more comprehensive views. He makes fre- 
(luent demands on the imagination of his readers; nay, he 
compels them, by way of background for his flying groups, to 
supply immense moveable pictures, and such as no theatrical 
art is capable of bringing before the eye. To represent the 
Faustus of Goethe, we must possess Faustus' magic staff, and 
his formulae of conjuration. And yet with all this unsuit- 
ableness for outward representation, very much may be 
learned from this wonderful work, with regard both to plan 
and execution. In a prologue, which was probably composed 
at a later period, the poet explains how, if true to his genius, 
he could not accommodate himself to the demands of a mixed 
multitude of spectators, and writes in some measure a farewell 
letter to the theatre. 

All must allow that Goethe possesses dramatic talent in a 
very high degree, but not indeed much theatrical talent. He 
is much more anxious to effect his object by tender develop- 
ment than by rapid external motion; even the mild grace 
of his harmonious mind prevented him from aiming at strong 
demagogic effect. IpJiigenia in Taurus possesses, it is true, 
more aflinity to the Greek spirit than perhaps any other work 
of the moderns composed before Goethe's; but is not so much 
an ancient tragedy as a reflected image of one, a musical 
echo : the violent catastrophes of the latter appear here in the 
distance only as recollections, and all is softly dissolved within 
the mind. The deepest and most moving pathos is to be 
found in Egmont, but in the conclusion this tragedy also is 
removed from the external world into the domain of an ideal 
soul-music. 

That with this direction of his poetical career to the purest 
expression of his inspired imagining, without regard to any 



SHAKSPEARE IN GERMANY — ^SCHILLER. 519 

otiier object, and with tlie universality of liis artistic studies, 
Goethe shouki not have had that decided influence on the 
shape of our theatre which, if he had chosen to dedicate him- 
self exclusively and immediately to it, he might have exer- 
cised, is easily conceivable. 

In the mean time, shortly after Goethe's first appearance, 
the attempt had been made to bring Shakspeare on our stage. 
The effort was a great and extraordinary one. Actors still 
alive acquired their first laurels in this wholly novel kind of 
exhibition, and Schroder, perhaps, in some of the most cele- 
brated tragic and comic parts, attained to the same perfection 
for which Garrick had been idolized. As a whole, however, 
no one piece appeared in a very perfect shape ; most of them 
were in heavy prose translations, and frequently mere extracts, 
with disfiguring alterations, were exhibited. The separate 
characters and situations had been hit to a certain degree of 
success, but the sense of his composition was often missed. 

In this state of things Schiller made his appearance, a man 
endowed with all the qualifications necessary to produce at 
once a strong effect on the multititude, and on nobler minds. 
He composed his earliest works while very young, and un- 
acquainted with that world which he attempted to paint ; and 
although a genius independent and boldly daring, he was 
nevertheless influenced in various ways by the models which 
he saw in the already mentioned pieces of Lessing, by the 
earlier labours of Goethe, and in Shakspeare, so far as he could 
understand him without an acquaiutance with the original. 

In this way were jDroduced the works of his youth; — Die 
Ma'uher, Cahale unci Liebe, and Fiesco. The first, wild and 
horrible as it was, produced so powerful an effect as even to 
turn the heads of youthful enthusiasts. The defective imita- 
tion here of Shakspeare is not to be mistaken : Francis Moor 
is a prosaical Richard III., ennobled by none of the properties 
which in the latter mingle admiration with aversion. Cahale 
und Liehe can hardly affect us by its e:^travagant sentimen- 
tality, but it tortures us by the most painful impressions. 
Fiesco is in design the most perverted, in effect the feeblest. 

So noble a mind could not long persevere in such mistaken 
courses, though they gained him applauses which might have 
rendered the continuance of his blindness excusable. He had 
in his own case experienced the dangers of an undisciplined 
spirit and an ungovernable defiance of all constraining autho- 



520 SCHILLER DON CARLOS — WALLENSTEIN. 

Tit J, and therefore, with incredible diligence and a sort of 
jmssion, he gave himself up to artistic discipline. The work 
which marks this new epoch is Don Carlos. In parts we 
observe a greater depth in the delineation of character; yet 
the old and tumid extravagance is not altogether lost, but 
merely clothed with choicer forms. In the situations there is 
much of pathetic power, the plot is complicated even to epi- 
grammatic subtlety; but of such value in the eyes of the 
l^oet were his dearly purchased reflections on human nature 
and social institutions, that, instead of expressing them by the 
progress of the action, he exhibited them with circumstantial 
fulness, and made his characters philosophize more or less on 
themselves and others, and by that means swelled his work to 
a size quite incompatible with theatrical limits. 

Historical and philosophical studies seemed now, to the 
Ultimate profit of his art, to have seduced the poet for a time 
from his poetical career, to which he returned with a riper 
mind, enriched with varied knowledge, and truly enlightened 
at last with respect to his own aims and means. He now 
applied himself exclusively to Historical Tragedy, and endea- 
voured, by divesting himself of his personality, to rise to a 
truly objective representation. In Wallenstein he has ad- 
hered so conscientiously to historical truth, that he could not 
wholly master his materials, an event of no great historical ex- 
tent is sj)un out into two plays, with prologae in some degree 
didactical. In form he has closely followed Shakspeare ; only 
that he might not make too large a demand on the imagina- 
tion of the spectators, he has endeavoured to confine the 
changes of place and time within narrower limits. He also 
tied himself down to a more sustained observance of tragical 
dignity, and has brought forward no persons of mean con- 
dition, or at least did not allow them to speak in their natural 
tone, and banished into the prelude the mere people, here 
represented hj the army, though Shakspeare introduced them 
with such vividness and truth into the very midst of the 
great public events. The loves of Thekla and Max Piccolo- 
mini form, it is true, properly an episode, and bear the stamp 
of an age very different from that depicted in the rest of the 
work ; but it affords an opportunity for the most affecting 
scenes, and is conceived with equal tenderness and dignity, 

Maria Stuart is planned and executed with more artistic 
skill, and also with greater depth and breadth. All is wisely 



SCHILLER — MARIA STUART — MAID OF ORLEANS. 521 

weighed ; we may censure particular parts as offensive : the 
quarrel for instance, between the two Queens, the wild fury of 
Mortimer's passion, &c. ; but it is hardly possible to take any 
thing av/ay without involving the whole in confusion. The piece 
cannot fail of effect; the last moments of Mary are truly worthy 
of a queen j religious impressions are employed with becom- 
ing earnestness ; only from the care, perhaps superfluous, to 
exercise, after Mary's death, poetical justice on Elizabeth, the 
spectator is dismissed rather cooled and indifferent. 

With such a wonderful subject as the Maid of OrUanSy 
Schiller thought himself entitled to take greater liberties. The 
plot is looser; the scene with Montgomery, an epic intermix- 
ture, is at variance with the general tone ; in the singular and 
inconceivable appearance of the black knight, the object of the 
poet is ambiguous; in the character of Talbot, and many other 
parts, Schiller has entered into an unsuccessful competition 
with Shakspeare; and I know not but the colouring em- 
ployed, which is not so brilliant as might be imagined, is an 
equivalent for the severer pathos which has been sacrificed to 
it. The history of the Maid of Orleans, even to its details, is 
generally known; her high mission was believed by herself 
and generally by her contemporaries, and produced the most 
extraordinary effects. The marvel might, therefore, have 
been represented by the poet, even though the sceptical spirit 
of his contemporaries should have deterred him from giving 
it out for real; and the real ignominious martyrdom of this 
betrayed and abandoned heroine would have agitated us more 
deeply than the gaudy and rose-coloured one which, in con- 
tradiction to history, Schiller has invented for her. Shak- 
speare's picture, though partial from national prejudice, still 
possesses much more historical truth and profundity. How- 
ever, the German piece will ever remain as a generous 
attempt to vindicate the honour of a name deformed by im- 
pudent ridicule ; and its dazzling effect, strengthened by the 
rich ornateness of the language, deservedly gained for it on 
the stage the most eminent success. 

■Least of all am I disposed to approve of the principles 
which Schiller followed in The Bride of Messina, and which 
he openly avows in his preface. The examina.tion of them, 
however, would lead me too far into the province of theory. 
It was intended to be a tragedy, at once ancient in its form, 
but romantic in substance. A story altogether fictitious is 



522 SCHILLER — WILHELM TELL — SCHILLER's DEATH. 

kept in a costume so indefinite and so devoid of all intrinsic 
probability, that the picture is neither truly ideal nor truly 
natural^ neither mythological nor historical. The romantic 
poetry seeks indeed to blend together the most remote objects, 
but it cannot admit of combining incompatible things; the 
■way of thinking of the people represented cannot be at once 
Pagan and Christian. I will not complain of him for borrow- 
ing openly as he has done; the whole is principally composed 
of two ingredients, the story of Eteocles and Polyuices, who, 
notwithstanding the mediation of their mother Jocaste, con- 
tend for the sole possession of the throne, and of the brothers, 
in the Zwillingen von Klinger, and in Julius von Tarent, 
impelled to fratricide by rivalry in love. In the introduction 
of the choruses also, though they possess nmch lyrical sub- 
limity and many beauties, the spirit of the ancients has been 
totally mistaken; as each of the hostile brothers has a chorus 
attached to his, the one contending against the other, they 
both cease to be a true chorus ; that is, the voice of human 
sympathy and contemplation elevated above all personal con- 
siderations. 

Schiller's last work, Wilhelm Tell, is, in my opinion, also 
Lis best. Here he has returned to the poetry of history; the 
manner in which he has handled his subject, is true, cordial, 
and when we consider Schiller's ignorance of Swiss nature 
and manners, wonderful in point of local truth. It is true he 
had here a noble source to draw from in the speaking pictures 
of the immortal John Miiller. This soul-kindling picture of 
old German manners, piety, and true heroism, might have 
merited, as a solemn celebration of Swiss freedom, five 
hundred years after its foundation, to have been exhibited, 
in view of Tell's chapel on the banks of the lake of Lucerne, 
in the open air, and with the Alps for a background. 

Schiller was carried ofi" by an untimely death in the fulness 
of mental maturity ; up to the last moment his health, which 
had long been undermined, was made to yield to his powerful 
will, and completely exhausted in the pursuit of most praise- 
worthy objects. How much might he not have still x^er- 
formed had he lived to dedicate himself exclusively to the 
theatre, and with every work attained a higher mastery in 
Ms art ! He was, in the genuine sense of the word, a vir- 
tuous artist ; with purity of mind he worshipped the true and 
the beautiful, and to his indefatigable efi'orts to attain them 



GOETHE ANI> SCHILLER — THEIR IMITATORS. 523 

his own existence was the sacrifice; lie was, moreover, far 
removed from that petty self-love and jealousy but too com- 
mon even among artists of excellence. 

Great original minds in Germany have always been followed 
by a host of imitators, and hence both Goethe and Schiller 
have been the occasion, without any fault of theirs, of a 
number of defective and degenerate productions being brought 
on our stage. 

Gotz von Berlichingen was followed by quite a flood of 
cliivalrous plays, in which there was nothing historical but 
the names ancl other external circumstances, nothing chival- 
rous but the helmets, bucklers, and swords, and nothing of 
old German honesty but the supposed rudeness : the senti- 
ments were as modern as they v/ere vulgar. From chivalry- 
pieces they became true cavalry-pieces, which certainly de- 
served to be acted by horses rather than by men. To all 
those who in some measure appeal to the imagination by 
superficial allusions to former times, may be applied what I 
said of one of the most adm^ired of them : 

Mit Harsthornern, tind Burgen, und Harnischen, pranget Johanna ; 
Traunl mir gefiele das Stiick, war en nicht Worte dabey*. 

The next place in the public favour has been held by the 
Family Picture ^nd the Affecting Drama, two secondary species. 
From the charge of encouraging these both by precept and 
examjole Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller (the two last by their 
earliest compositions Stella, Clavigo, Die Geschwister, Cabale 
unci Liehe), cannot be acquitted. I will name no one, but 
merely suppose that two writers of some talent and theatrical 
knowledge had dedicated themselves to these species, that 
they had both mistaken the essence of dramatic poetry, and 
laid down to themselves a pretended moral aim ; but that the 
one saw morality under the narrow guise of economy, and 
the other in that of sensibility: what sort of fruits would thus 
be put forth, and how would the applause of the multitude 
finally decide between these two competitors ? 

The family picture is intended to portray the every-day 
course of the middle ranks of society. The extraordinary 
events which are produced by intrigue are consequently 
banished from it: to cover this want of motion, the writer 

* With trumpets, and donjons, and helmets, Johanna parades it. 
It would certainly please were but the words all away. — Ed. 



524 THE GERMAN DRAMA REVIEWED. 

has recourse to a cliaracterizatlon wliolly individual, and 
capable of receiving vividness from a practised player, but 
attaclies itself to external peculiarities just as a bad portrait- 
painter endeavours to attain a resemblance bj noticing every 
int of small-pox and wart, and peculiar dress and cravat-tie : 
tlie motives and situations are sometimes humorous and droll, 
but never truly diverting, as the serious and prosaical aim 
which is always kept in view completely prevents this. The 
rapid determinations of Comedy generally end before the family 
life begins, by which all is fixed in every-day habits To make 
economy poetical is impossible : the dramatic family painter 
will be able to say as little of a fortunate and tranquil 
domestic establishment, as the historian can of a state in pos- 
session of external and internal tranquillity. He is therefore 
driven to interest us by painting with painful accuracy the 
torments and the penury of domestic life^chagrins expe- 
rienced in the honest exercise of duty, in the education of 
children, interminable dissensions between husband and wife, 
the bad conduct of servants, and, above all things, the cares of 
earning a daily subsistence. The spectators understand these 
pictures but too well, for every man knows where the shoe 
pinches j it may be very salutary for them to have, in presence 
of the stage, to run over weekly in thought the relation be- 
tween their expenditure and income; but surely they will 
hardly derive from it elevation of mind or recreation, for they 
do but find again on the stage the very same thing which 
they have at home from morning to night. 

The sentimental poet, again, contrives to lighten their 
heart. His general doctrine amounts properly to this, that 
what is called a good heart atones for all errors and extrava- 
gances, and that, with respect to virtue, we are not to insist 
so strictly on principles. Do but allow, he seems to say to 
his spectators, free scope to your natural impulses ; see how 
well it becomes my naive girls, when they voluntarily and 
"without reserve confess every thing. If he only knows how to 
corrupt by means of efi'eminate emotions — rather sensual than 
moral, but at the close contrives, by the introduction of some 
generous benefactor, who showers out his liberality with open 
hands, to make all things pretty even, he then marvellously 
•delights the Aatiated hearts of his audience : they feel as if 
they had themselves done noble actions, without, however, 
putting their hands in their own pockets — all is drawn from 



HISTRIONIC ART IN GERMANY. 52 5 

tlie purse of tlie generous poet. In tlie long run^ therefore^ tlie 
affecting species can hardly fail to gain a victory over the 
economical ; and this has actually been the case in Germany. 
But what in these dramas is painted to us not only as natural 
and allowable^ but even as moral and dignified, is strange- 
beyond all thought, and the seduction, consequently, is much 
more dangerous than that of the licentious Comedy, for this 
very reason, that it does not disgust us by external indecency, 
but steals into unguarded minds, and selects the most sacred 
names for a disguise. 

The poetical as well as moral decline of taste in our time 
has been attended with this consequence, that the most popular 
writers for the stage, regardless of the opinion of good judges, 
and of true repute, seek only for momentary applause ; while 
others, who have both higher aims, keep both the former 
in view, cannot prevail on themselves to comply with the 
demands of the multitude, and when they do compose 
dramatically, have no regard to the stage. Hence they are 
defective in the theatrical part of art, which can only be at- 
tained in perfection by practice and experience. 

The repertory of our stage^ therefore, exhibits, in its 
miserable wealth, a motley assemblage of chivalrous pieces, 
family pictures, and sentimental dramas, which are occa- 
sionally, though seldom, varied by works in a grander and 
higher style by Shakspeare and Schiller. In this state of 
things, translations and imitations of foreign novelties, and 
especially of the French after-pieces and operettes, are indis- 
pensable. From the worthlessness of the separate works, 
nothing but the fleeting charm of novelty is sought for 
in theatrical entertainment, to* the great injury of the 
histrionic art, as a number of insignificant parts must be got 
by heart in the most hurried manner, to be immediately 
forgotten*. 

* To tills must be added, by way of rendering the vulgarity of our 
theatre almost incurable, the radically depraved disposition of every thing^ 
having any reference to the theatre. The companies of actors ought to be 
under the management of intelligent judges and persons practised in the 
dramatic art, and not themselves players. Engel presided for a time over 
the Berlin theatre, and eye-witnesses universally assert that he succeeded 
in giving it a great elevation, What Goethe has effected in the manage- 
ment of the theatre of Weimar, in a small town, and with small means, is 
known to all good theatrical judges in Germany. Rare talents he can 
neither create nor reward, but he accustoms the actors to order and disci- 



526 HISTRIONIC ART IN GERMANY. 

The labours o£ tlie poets who do not write immediately for 
the theatre take every variety of direction: in this, as in 

pline, to which they are generally altogether disinchned, and thereby gives 
to his representations a unity and harmony which we do not witness on 
larger theatres, where every individual plays as his own fancy prompts him. 
The Httle correctness with which their parts are got by heart, and the im- 
perfection of their oral dehvery, I have elsewhere censured, I have heard 
verses mutilated by a celebrated player in a manner wliich would at Paris 
be considered unpardonable in a beginner. It is a fact, that in a certaia 
theatre, when they were under the melancholy necessity of representing a 
piece in verse they wrote out the parts as prose, that the players might not 
be disturbed in their darhng but stupid affectation of nature, by observa- 
tion of the quantity. How many " periwig-pated fellows" (as Shakspeai-e 
called such people), must we suffer, who imagine they ai'e affording the 
pubhc an enjoyment, when they straddle along the boards with their awk- 
ward persons, considering the words which the poet has given them to 
repeat merely as a necessary evil. Our players are less anxious to please 
than the French. By the creation of standing national theatres as they 
are called, by which in several capitals people suppose that they have 
accomplished wonders, and are hkely to improve the liistrionic art, they 
have on the contrary put a complete end to all competition. They bestow 
on the players exclusive privileges — they secure their salaries for hfe ; 
having now nothmg to dread from more accomphshed rivals, and being 
independent of the fluctuating favour of the spectators, the only concern of 
the actors is to enjoy their places, hke so many benefices, in the most con- 
venient manner. Hence the national theatres have become true hospitals 
for languor and laziness. The question of Hamlet with respect to the 
players — "Do they grow rusty?" will never become obsolete; it must, 
alas ! be always answered in the affirmative. The actor, from the ambi- 
guous position in which he hves (which, in the nature of things, cannot 
well be altered), must possess a certain extravagant enthusiasm for his art, 
if he is to gain any extraordinaiy repute. He cannot be too passion- 
ately ahve to noisy applause, reputation, and every brilliant reward which 
may crown his efforts to please. The present moment is his kingdom; 
time is his most dangerous enemy, as there is nothing durable in liis exhi- 
bition. Whenever he is filled with the tradesman-like anxiety of securing 
a moderate maintenance for himself, his wife, and children, there is an end 
of all improvement. We do not mean to say that the old age of deserving 
artists ought not to be provided for. But to those players who from age, 
illness, or other accidents, have lost their qualifications for acting, we 
ought to give pensions to induce them to leave off instead of continuing to 
play. In general, we ought not to put it into the heads of the players that 
they are such important and indispensable personages. Notliing is more 
rai-e than a truly great player ; but nothing is more common than the 
quahfications for filling characters in the manner we generally see them 
filled ; of this we may be convinced in every amatem* theatre among tole- 
rably educated people. Finally, the relation wliich subsists with us 
between the managers of theatres and wiiters, is also as detrimental as 
possible. In France and England, the author of a piece has a certaia 



ESTHETICS FRE^'CII TRAGEDY, 527 

other departments, may be observed the ferment of ideas 
that has brought on our literature in foreign countries the 
reproach of a chaotic anarchy, in which, however, the striving 
after a higher aim as yet unreached is sufficiently visible. 

The more profound study of ^Esthetics has among the Ger- 
mans, by nature a speculative rather than a practical people, 
led to this consequence, that works of art, and tragedies more 
especially, have been executed on abstract theories, more or 
less misunderstood. It was natural that these tragedies 
should produce no effect on the theatre; nay, they are, in 
general, unsuited for representation, and wholly devoid of any 
inner principle of life. 

Others again, with true feeling for it, have, as it were, 
appropriated the very spirit of the ancient tragedians, and 
sought for the most suitable means of accommodating the 
simple and pure forms of ancient art to the present constitu- 
tion of our stage. 

]Men truly distinguished for their talents have attached 
themselves to the romantic drama, but in it they have gene- 
rally adopted a latitude which is not really allowable, except 
in a romance, wholly disregarding the compression which 
the dramatic form necessarily requires. Or they have seized 
only the musically fanciful and picturesquely sportive side of 
the Spanish dramas, without their thorough keeping, their 
energetical power, and their theatrical effect. 

What path shall we now enter? Shall we endeavour to 
accustom ourselves again to the French form of Tragedy, 
which has been so long banished? Repeated experience of it 
has proved that, however modified in the translation and 
representation, for even in the hands of a Goethe or a Schiller 
some modification is indispensable, it can never be very suc- 
cessful. 

share of the profits of each representation; this procures for him a perma- 
nent income, whenever any of his pieces are so successful as to keep their 
place on the theatre. Again, if the piece is unsuccessful, he receives no- 
thing. In Germany, the managers of theatres pay a certain sum before- 
hand, and at their own risk, for the manuscripts which they receive. They 
may thus he very considerable losers ; and on the other hand, if the piece 
is extraordinarily successful, the author is not suitably rewarded. 

[The Author is under a mistake with respect to the reward which faUs 
to the share of the dramatic wiiter in England. He has not a part of the 
profits of each representation. If the play runs three nights, it brings him 
in as much as if it were to run three thousand nights. — Trans.] 



528 GERMAN NATIONAL DRAMA. 

The genuine imitation of Greek Tragedy has far more affi- 
nity to our national ways of thinking; but it is beyond the 
comprehension of the multitude, and, like the contemplation 
of ancient statues, can never be more than an acquired artistic 
enjoyment for a few highly cultivated minds. 

In Comedy, Lessing lias already pointed out the difficulty 
of introducing national manners which are not provincial, 
inasmuch as with us the tone of social life is not modelled 
after a common central standard. If we wish pure comedies, 
I would strongly recommend the use of rhyme; with the more 
artificial form they might, perhaps, gradually assume also a 
peculiarity of substance. 

To me, however, it appears that this is not the most urgent 
want: let us first bring to perfection the serious and higher 
species, in a manner worthy of the German character. Now 
here, it appears to me, that our taste inclines altogether to 
the romantic. What most attracts the multitude in our half- 
sentimental, half-humorous dramas, which one moment trans- 
port us to Peru, and the next to Kamschatka, and soon after 
into the times of chivalry, while the sentiments are all modern 
and lachrymose, is invariably a certain sprinkling of the 
romantic, which we recognize even in the most insipid magical 
operas. The true significance of this species was lost with us 
before it was properly found; the fancy has passed with the 
inventors of such chimeras, and the views of the plays are 
sometimes wiser than those of their authors. In a hundred 
play-bills the name " romantic" is profaned, by being lavished 
on rude and monstrous abortions; let us therefore be per- 
mitted to elevate it, by criticism and history, again to its true 
import. We have lately endeavoured in many ways to revive 
the remains of our old national poetry. These may afford the 
poet a foundation for the wonderful festival-play; but the 
most dignified species of the romantic is the historical. 

In this field the most glorious laurels may yet be reaped by 
dramatic poets who are willing to emulate Goethe and Schiller. 
Only let our historical drama be in reality and thoroughly 
national; let it not attach itself to the life and adventures of 
single knights and petty princes, who exercised no influence 
on the fortunes of the whole nation. Let it, at the same time, 
be truly historical, drawn from a profound knowledge, and 
transporting us back to the great olden time. In this mirror 
let the poet enable us to see, while we take deep shame to 



HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR NATIONAL DRAMA. 529 

ourselves for wliat we are, what the Germans were in former 
times, and what they must again be. Let him impress it 
strongly on our hearts, that, if we do not consider the lessons 
of history better than we have hitherto done, we Germans — 
we, formerly the greatest and most illustrious nation of 
Europe, whose freely-elected prince was willingly acknow- 
ledged the head of all Christendom — are in danger of dis- 
appearing altogether from the list of independent nations. 
The higher ranks, by their predilection for foreign manners, 
by their fondness for exotic literature, which, transplanted 
from its natural climate into hot-houses, can only yield a 
miserable fruit, have long alienated themselves from the body 
of the people; still longer, even for three centuries, at least, 
has internal dissension wasted our noblest energies in civil 
wars, whose ruinous consequences are now first beginning to 
disclose themselves. May all who have an opportunity of 
influencing the public mind exert themselves to extinguish at 
last the old misunderstandings, and to rally, as round a conse- 
crated banner, all the well-disposed objects of reverence, which, 
unfortunately, have been too long deserted, but by faithful 
attachment to which our forefathers acquired so much happi- 
ness and renown, and to let them feel their indestructible 
unity as Germans! What a glorious picture is furnished by 
our history, from the most remote times, the wars with the 
Romans, down to the establishment of the German Empire! 
Then the chivalrous and brilliant era of the House of Hohen- 
staufen ! and lastly, of greater political importance, and more 
nearly concerning ourselves, the House of Hapsburg, with its 
many princes and heroes. What a field for a poet, who, like 
Shakspeare, could discern the poetical aspect of the great 
events of the world ! But, alas, so little interest do we Ger- 
mans take in events truly important to our nation, that its 
greatest achievements still lack even a fitting historical 
record. 



2l 



531 



INDEX 



Accolti, 224 

Achseus, 78 

ADDISON, Review of, 484—485 

^SCHYLUS, Review of, 78—95, 
Referred to, 50, 57, 58, 71, 77, 
96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 103, 111, 
120, 121, 122, 128, 129, 131, 
132, 143, 153, 155, 165, 206, 
244, 247, 249, 302—339, 368, 
429, 431 

Africanus, 204, 205 

Aeathon, 78, 146, 163, 165 

ALFIERI, Review of, 221—3, 
Referred to, 28, 228, 272 

Anacreon, 198 

Anaxagoras, 116 

Andre, 233 

Andronicus (Livius), 201, 205, 206 

Antiphanes, 192 

ApollodoriTS, 191 

Aretino (Pietro), 224 

Ariosto, 20, 215, 224, 230, 381, 386 

ARISTOPHANES, Review of, 153 
— 173, References, 40, 41, 52, 

113, 116, 117, 121, 141, 144, 
145, 149, 150, 174, 175, 176, 
194, 196, 319, 321, 351 

Aristophanes (The Grammarian), 

100, 179, 312 
Aristotle, Influence of, 233—245, 

References, 49, 68, 70, 112, 113, 

114, 115, 186, 253, 275, 284, 
296 

Arteaga, 217, 223 

Attius, 93, 206, 207 

Augustus, 201, 206, 207, 285, 336 

Ayrer, 506 

Ealzac, 285 

Barthelemy, 49, 52, 59, 63, 105, 
145 



Bathyllus, 206 

Beaumarchais, 333 

BEAUMONT (and Fletcher), Re- 
view of 466 — 474 

BEN JONSON, Review of, 460— 
466. References, 299, 347, 353, 
377 

Besenval, 323 

Betterton, 455 

Boccacio, 33, 397 

BOILEAU, 279, 292, 313, 317, 
326, 334, 335 

Boursault, 319 

Bouterwek, 224, 490 

Brook, Lord, 457 

Brayere (La), 320 

Brumoy, 212 

Brunk, 135 

Buckingham, 479 

Csesar, 118, 191, 203, 204, 241, 

266, 267, 309 
CALDERON, Review of, 494—504 

References, 217, 227, 242, 272, 

288, 326, 338, 340, 341, 342, 

345, 358 
Calprenede, 294 
Calsabigi, 215, 231 
Camoens, 20, 500 
Capell, 453 
Catullus, 200 
Cei-vantes, 354, 500 
Chamfort, 309 
Chapman, 459 
Charles the Bold, 372 ■ 
Chiari, 230 
Cibber, 481 

Cicero, 60, 61, 109, 207, 209, 366 
Collin d'HarlevUle, 326 
Colman, 484 
Congreve, 479, 483 

L 2 



;32 



INDEX. 



CORNEILLE, Review of, 275— 
288. References to, 212, 218, 
232, 233, 234, 242, 243, 245, 
255, 263, 267, 2G8, 269, 270 

Corneille (Thomas), 275, 276, 278, 
293, 296, 297, 303, 318, 336 

Coypel, 295 

Cratinus, 167, 175 

CREBILLON, Review of, 294—7. 
References, 264, 272, 302 

Cronegk, 509 

Dancourt, 323, 477 

Dante, 20, 80, 346, 359, 396 

Davenant, 477 

Decker, 458 

De la Motte, 243, 330 

Destouches, 323, 324 

Diderot, 330, 331, 332, 333, 486, 

504 
DiphUus, 190, 191 
Dodsley, 448 
DRYDEN, Review of, 477—479. 

Reference, 377 
Ducis, 334 

Engel, 513 

Ennius, 206 

Epicharmus, 34, 150, 191 

Epicunis, 191, 359 

Ercella, Alonzo de, 500 

Euclid, 68 

Eulenspiegel, 506 

Eupolis, 167, 168, 321 

EURIPIDES, Review of. 111— 
144. References, 58, 67, 71, 78, 
79, 89, 96, 109, 160, 163, 164, 
165, 169, 176, 207, 216, 247, 
272, 292 

rarquhar, 483 
Favart, 328 
EonteneUe, 233 
FrankHn, 104 

Gammer Gurton, 448 
Garcilaso, 500 
Gai-nier, 233 
Garrick, 61, 486 
Gellert, 509 



Genelli, 53 
Glover, 486 
GOETHE, Review of, 514—518. 

References, 156, 197, 337, 348, 

362, 523 
Goldoni, 226, 230, 332, 354 
Gorgias, 80, 144 
Getter, 509 
Gottsched, 508 
Gozzi, 226, 227, 228, 230 
Grosset, 325 
Grvphius, 507 
Guarini, 214—215, 230 
Guido, 200 
GuiUen de Castro, 283, 494 

Hannibal, 373 

Hemsterhuys, 22 

Herder, 108 

Herodotus, 33 

Heywood, 447, 459 

Holbein, 372 

Holberg, 186, 382, 509 

Homer, 20, 43, 67, 75, 76, 82, 92, 

143, 209, 260, 261, 290, 359, 366 
Horace, 49, 70, 153, 154, 179, 189, 

204, 206, 207, 210, 211, 248, 

254, 256,261, 278, 351 
Huerta (de la), 276, 333, 489 
Humboldt, M. von (the Elder), 

337 
Hyginus, 118, 216 

Isocrates, 137, 139 

Jodelle, 233 

Johnson, Dr., 249, 360, 363, 365, 

370, 399 
Jones, Sir William, 33 
Jones, Inigo, 253 

Kant, 69 
Kotzebue, 459 
Kyd, 457 

Labernis, 203, 204 

La Chaussee, 333 

La Harpe, 49, 232, 233, 283, 292, 

298, 309, 321, 332, 333 
Leelius, 190 



INDEX. 



5St 



Lee, 479 

Legoiive, 232 

Legrand, 321 

Lemercier, 33 i 

Lenotre, 273 

Lesage, 329 

LESSING, Review of, 510-513 
References, 68, 108, 119, 238 
268, 269, 288, 296, 300, 302, 
330, 331, 332, 348, 364, 528 

Lillo, 486 

Lilly, 457 

Livy, 285 

Lohenstein, 508 

LOPE DE VEGA, Review of, 491 
—494. References, 28, 318, 
354 

Lucan, 211, 264, 278, 283 

LnlU, 326 

Luther, 356 

Lycophron, 144 

Lysippus, 79 

Macchiavelli, 223, 224, 286, 356 

Maffei, 216 

Mairet, 336 

Malone, 377, 378 

Mantegna. 112 

Marivaux, 323, 324, 325 

Mariow, 457 

Marston, 458 

Massinger, 474 

Matos-Fragoso, 494 

Menander, 145, 176, 191, 194, 199, 

204, 309 
Mercier, 330, 333 
METASTASIO, Review of, 216— 

220. References, 28, 49, 230, 

326. 
Michael Angelo, 20 
Milton, 347, 376 
MOLIERE, Review of, 186, 275, 

291, 305, 306, 308, 310, 311, 

312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 

320, 322, 324, 326, 427 
Molina, 494 
Montague, Mrs., 345 
Montalban, 494 
Moratin, 505 
More, Sir Thomas, 372 



1 Moreto, 275, 497, 505 
Moses, 3G6 
Muller (Adam), 341 
Munter, 53 

Nsevius, 206 

Opitz, 507 
Otway, 479 
Ovid, 58, 207, 209, 346 

Pacuvius, 206, 207 

Perugino, 112 

Peruse (Jean de la), 233 

Petrarch, 366 

Phsedrus, 191 

Philemon, 120, 190, 191 

Phrynichus, 71, 72, 78, 331 

Phidias, 79 

Pindar, 206 

Pindemonti, 229 

Piron, 325, 329 

Plato, 30, 40, 56, 78, 113, 144, 

146, 152, 155, 156, 163, 180, 

238 
Platonius, 60, 174, 175, 196 
PLAUTUS, Review of, 28, 181, 

188, 191, 200, 204, 208, 224, 

225, 306, 307, 310, 311, 312, 

380, 381 
PUny, 207, 210 
Plutarch, 145, 262 
PolUo (Asinius), 207 
Pollux (Julius), 62, 115, 155, 192, 

196 
Polycletus, 79 
Pope, 347, 363, 377, 485 
Porta (Giambatista), 225 
Posilippus, 199 
Pradon, 279, 292, 293 
Propertius, 209 
Pylades, 206 

Quinault, 275, 326, 327 
Qainctilian, 49, 60, 120, 196, 205, 
207, 210 

Rabelais, 307 

RACINE, Review of, 289-93. Re- 
ferences, 111, 135, 139. 212, 218, 



534 



INDEX. 



222, 233, 234, 235, 241, 257, 
261, 262, 263, 264, 267, 269, 
275, 279, 280, 282, 283, 319 

Raphael, 20, 110 

Reynard, 256, 320, 321 

Rotrou, 275 

Rosenpluet (Hans), 506 

Roscius, 206 

Rousseau, 22, 187, 317, 328 

Rowe, 484 

Roxas (De), 275, 318, 497 

Sachs (Hans), 307, 506 

Sappho, 198 

Sallust, 299 

Scarron, 314, 318, 319 

Scuderi, 284 

SCHILLER, Review of, 519, 523. 
Reference, 267 

Schlegel, (A. W. Von), 104 

Schlegel, (Joh. EUas), 259, 509 

Schroder, 61 

Scipio, (the elder), 190 

Sedaine, 328 

Seckendorf (Leo von), 331 

SENECA, Review of, 210—212. 
References, 135, 207, 222, 229, 
233, 278, 292. 

Seneca (the Philosopher), 210, 278 

Servius, 55 

SHAKSPEARE, Review of his 
Dramas, 379; X^o Gentlemen of 
Verona, 380 ; Comedy of Errors, 
380 ; Taming of the Shrew, 381 ; 
Love's Labour Lost, 382 ; AU's 
Well that Ends Well, 384 ; Much 
Ado about Notliing, 386; Mea- 
sure for Measure, 387 ; Merchant 
of Venice, 388 ; As You Like it, 
391; Twelfth Night, 392; Merry 
Wives of Windsor, 392; Mid- 
summer Night's Dream, 393 ; 
Tempest, 393; Winter's Tale, 
396 ; Cj^mbeline, 397 ; Romeo 
and JuHet, 400 ; OtheUo, 402 ; 
Hamlet, 404; Macbeth, 407; 
King Lear, 411 ; Coriolanus, 
414; Julius Csesar, 415 ; Antony 
and Cleopatra, 416; Timon of 
Athens, 417 ; Troilus and Cres- 



sida, 418; Hist. Plays, 419-440; 
Spurious Plays, 440-446 ; his 
Playhouse, 450 ; his Acting, 454. 
References, 23, 28, 33, 80, 82, 
227, 235, 239, 240, 244, 251, 
255, 262, 272, 282, 297, 298, 
320, 334, 340, 341, 342, 345, 
346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 
352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 358, 
359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 
365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 
371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 
377, 378 

Shii'ley, 474 

Socrates, 30, 116, 146, 154, 156, 

164, 309 
Solis (De), 497 
SOPHOCLES, Review of, 96— 

110. References to, 23, 48, 58, 
71,77, 78, 79, 92, 95, 111, 113, 
114, 115, 118, 120, 121, 124, 
125, 126, 131, 132, 133, 142, 

165, 207, 244, 247, 249, 295, 
296 

Sophron, 179, 339,367 
Southerne, 485 
Spenser, 378 
Steele, 483 
Suard, 233 
Syrus, 203, 204 

Tacitus, 222, 223, 264 

Talma, 334, 337 

Tasso, 20, 214, 225, 230, 265 

TERENCE, Review of, 188—192. 
References, 28, 181, 197, 200, 
204, 205, 224, 225, 306, 307, 
309, 312, 313, 326 

Theocritus, 180 

Theophrastus, 191 

Thespis, 153 

Thomson, 486 

Thucydides, 97, 154 

Tieck, 348 

Timotheus, 115 

Tiraboschi, 307 

Trissino, 214, 233 

Varro, 189 
Vanbrugh, 483 



INDEX. 



535 



Virgil, 20, 55, 209 . 

Vitruvius, 52, 64 

VOLTAIRE, Review of, 280—283 ; 
continued, 295 — 304. References, 
49, 60, 145, 196, 213, 216, 233, 
234, 235, 250, 251, 256, 257, 
258, 264, 265, 267, 268, 270, 
276, 278, 308, 332, 336, 337, 
345, 348 

Vondel, 507 

Webster. 458 



Weisse, 509 
Wycherley, 479 
Wieland, 248 

Winkelmann, 20, 48, 49, 76, 108, 
116 

Xenophon, 164 

Young, 486 

Zeno (Apostolo), 217 
Zucheri, 112 




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